Sue Halpern — What We Leave Behind - with Jane Mayer

<p>It's the perennial question: are we a product of how we were raised, or is our identity hardwired by our genetic inheritance? When her adoptive mother dies in a freak accident, high school senior Melody Marcus doubles down on her refusal to learn anything about her birth parents. In this age of 23&amp;me, though, that may not be possible, and the secrets hidden in her DNA threaten to upend everything she knows about herself and her family.</p><p>For Candace Milton, a successful woman in her forties, the collateral damage from her parents' tortured marriage has led to a life of intentional unattachment. She is happy--enough. But a chance encounter with a friend of Melody's father will challenge this assumption and force her to reimagine who she is and who she might become.</p><p>Big-hearted evocative, and achingly relatable, <em><strong>What We Leave Behind</strong></em><strong> </strong>grapples with destiny, belonging, and love, and makes us question our own idea of family: the kind we're born into and the kind we create.</p><p><br /></p><p>PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780063415386?ic_referral=N2JHQWWST6PekSCwJyrp5ACSuh_ZRpByAfnuVC4-4PQwM6J34DPLqOfsEooVThCTi3p8mK_Vi1QXl7IVvLf7YTBdfybZwP2iP_pLMN8fXlL3aIJhIV6qhj-ePWzRgGmGZooCzy4</p><p><br /></p><p><strong>Sue Halpern</strong> is the author of seven books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently <em>Summer Hours at the Robbers Library.</em> Her writing has appeared in <em>The New Yorker</em>, the <em>New York Times Magazine, </em>the <em>New York Review of Books, Rolling Stone, </em>and <em>Condé Nast Traveler.</em> A former <em>New Yorker</em> staff writer, she lives Vermont with her husband, the writer and environmental activist Bill McKibben, and is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College.</p><p>Halpern is in conversation with <strong>Jane Mayer,</strong> the chief Washington correspondent for <em>The New Yorker,</em> covering politics, culture, and national security. Mayer is an author of several best-selling books, including “<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.amazon.com/dp/0307947904/?ots=1&amp;slotNum=0&amp;imprToken=6eb8e67a-47b4-8e93-d1a&amp;tag=thneyo0f-20__;!!F0Stn7g!BkQm8tRAoR3PN0ObRoy6AomckVbT-mSs4x92QjLHlKDZfPIs7EqZdH3B5yrtimQKfoR88s1opMpFJxxw0TMO3wqopUMg$" target="_blank">Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right</a>,” which the <em>Times</em> named as one of the ten best books of 2016, “<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.amazon.com/dp/0307456293/?ots=1&amp;slotNum=1&amp;imprToken=6eb8e67a-47b4-8e93-d1a&amp;tag=thneyo0f-20__;!!F0Stn7g!BkQm8tRAoR3PN0ObRoy6AomckVbT-mSs4x92QjLHlKDZfPIs7EqZdH3B5yrtimQKfoR88s1opMpFJxxw0TMO35NomAWY$" target="_blank">The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals</a>,” a finalist for the National Book Award, and one of the ten best books of the year by the <em>Times</em>. She is a co-author, with Jill Abramson, of “<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.amazon.com/dp/0395633184/?ots=1&amp;slotNum=2&amp;imprToken=6eb8e67a-47b4-8e93-d1a&amp;tag=thneyo0f-20__;!!F0Stn7g!BkQm8tRAoR3PN0ObRoy6AomckVbT-mSs4x92QjLHlKDZfPIs7EqZdH3B5yrtimQKfoR88s1opMpFJxxw0TMO31eILnqE$" target="_blank">Strange Justice</a>,” also a finalist for the National Book Award, and, with Doyle McManus, of “<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.amazon.com/dp/0395517575/?ots=1&amp;slotNum=3&amp;imprToken=6eb8e67a-47b4-8e93-d1a&amp;tag=thneyo0f-20__;!!F0Stn7g!BkQm8tRAoR3PN0ObRoy6AomckVbT-mSs4x92QjLHlKDZfPIs7EqZdH3B5yrtimQKfoR88s1opMpFJxxw0TMO37fx-U4G$" target="_blank">Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988</a>.” In 2022, she was inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists’ Hall of Fame. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.</p><p></p>