What We Inherit: A Secret War and a Family''s Search for Answers

Part memoir, part investigative journalism, and completely engrossing, What We Inherit is not a book you'll be forgetting anytime soon. Oprah Magazine Exceptional. Salman Rushdie In the wake of her mothers death, Jessica Pearce Rotondi uncovers boxes of letters, declassified CIA reports, and newspaper clippings that bring to light a family ghost: her uncle Jack, who disappeared during the CIA-led Secret War in Laos in 1972. The letters lead her across Southeast Asia in search of the truth that has eluded her family for decades. What she discovers takes her closer to the mother she lost and the mysteries of a secret war that changed the rules of engagement forever. In 1943, 19-year-old Edwin Pearce jumps from a burning B-17 bomber over Germany. Missing in action for months, his parents finally learn he is a prisoner of war in Stalag 17. Ed survives nearly three years in prison camp and a march across the Alps before returning home. Eds eldest son and namesake, Edwin Jack, follows his father into the Air Force. But on the night of March 29, 1972, Jacks plane vanishes over the mountains bordering Vietnam and Eds past comes roaring into the present. In 2009, Eds granddaughter, Jessica Pearce Rotondi, is grieving her mothers death when she stumbles across declassified CIA documents, letters, and maps that reveal her familys decades-long search for Jack. What We Inherit is Rotondis story of her own hunt for answers as she retraces her grandfathers 1973 path across Southeast Asia in search of his son. An excavation of inherited trauma on a personal and national scale, What We Inherit reveals the power of a fathers refusal to be silenced and a daughters quest to rediscover her voice in the wake of loss. As Rotondi nears the last known place Jack was seen alive, she grows closer to understanding the mystery that has haunted her family for generationsand the destructive impact of a family secret so big it encompassed an entire war. See more