The Inheritance
An American Tragedy in Five Acts
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The Inheritance
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Narrated by:
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By:
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Janet Reitman
A thrill-seeking former Navy pilot chases adventure in Afghanistan, while in suburbia, his teenage son spirals into extremism. The grandson of African freedom fighters joins the FBI to save America from terrorism and ends up terrorizing the African immigrants he’d sworn to protect. A young Marine who sees himself as a true-blue American goes to war in Iraq, comes home broken, and is reborn as white nationalist. An idealistic young attorney defends a Palestinian engineer she believes is wrongly accused of funding Hamas. These four people, and five others, struggle to find their way in a country reimagining itself in the wake of 9/11.
In The Inheritance, Janet Reitman, the bestselling author of Inside Scientology, delivers an intimate and urgent account of American disillusionment—and a paean to hope. From the bucolic suburbs of Boston to the immigrant enclaves of Dallas, from the deserts of Iraq to the encrypted chatrooms that fuel hatred and extremism, The Inheritance unfolds in repeating narratives of people moving through the decades, from the end of the Reagan era to the present day, painting a sweeping and deeply affective portrait of how a country revered for its democratic ideals became a nation defined by its fears.
Rigorously reported and brimming with novelistic detail, The Inheritance reveals the hidden cost of the war on terror, exposing the psychic wounds that haunt us to this day.
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Critic reviews
“An extraordinarily incisive—and bracing—study of the American dream gone awry . . . Rendered in a gripping, novelistic style, Reitman’s finely wrought subjects carry the reader steadily deeper into the nation’s ‘burnt over’ landscapes, forlorn places of extremism and paranoia, of alienation and despair. With understated power and authority, The Inheritance casts the smug, rose-tinted notion of American exceptionalism in a wholly new and devastating light.”—Scott Anderson, author of King of Kings
“The Inheritance is a symphonic dirge, brilliantly composed, intimate and haunting, about the human toll of American self-destruction in the age of terror.”—George Packer, NBA-winning author of The Unwinding and The Emergency
“This vast, intimate, heartbreaking book should change the way we read and think and tell stories about what it means to be an American, or to live in the United States, decades or centuries into our vexed condition. Here is a writer meeting the moment. Here are everyday people stepping up and breaking down and twisting inward and, sometimes, beginning to see. The Inheritance is beautifully made, profoundly reported—a mighty book from which I could not look away.”—Jeff Sharlet, bestselling author of The Family
“A riveting and superbly reported account of America’s descent into violent political division told through the eyes of fascinating characters . . . In the mode of John Dos Passos, it captures our fractured country with incredible power. It reads like a novel but is all too real.”—Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money
“In The Inheritance, master storyteller Janet Reitman unspools a narrative that captures the dark soul of post-9/11 America. Told through the lives of half a dozen indelible characters, her portrait of a traumatized nation illuminates how the attacks accelerated the forces that brought us to where we are today: extremism, xenophobic violence, and a justice system increasingly geared toward retribution.”—Joshua Hammer, author of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu
“What’s happening in America? How did we get here? Where are we going? The Inheritance is a book of revelation. It’s an epic history, a journalistic masterpiece, a story of people caught in the swirling currents of our time. It reads like a great novel and lingers in your mind like a ghost map to America’s future.”—Jeff Goodell, author of The Heat Will Kill You First
“The Inheritance is a symphonic dirge, brilliantly composed, intimate and haunting, about the human toll of American self-destruction in the age of terror.”—George Packer, NBA-winning author of The Unwinding and The Emergency
“This vast, intimate, heartbreaking book should change the way we read and think and tell stories about what it means to be an American, or to live in the United States, decades or centuries into our vexed condition. Here is a writer meeting the moment. Here are everyday people stepping up and breaking down and twisting inward and, sometimes, beginning to see. The Inheritance is beautifully made, profoundly reported—a mighty book from which I could not look away.”—Jeff Sharlet, bestselling author of The Family
“A riveting and superbly reported account of America’s descent into violent political division told through the eyes of fascinating characters . . . In the mode of John Dos Passos, it captures our fractured country with incredible power. It reads like a novel but is all too real.”—Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money
“In The Inheritance, master storyteller Janet Reitman unspools a narrative that captures the dark soul of post-9/11 America. Told through the lives of half a dozen indelible characters, her portrait of a traumatized nation illuminates how the attacks accelerated the forces that brought us to where we are today: extremism, xenophobic violence, and a justice system increasingly geared toward retribution.”—Joshua Hammer, author of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu
“What’s happening in America? How did we get here? Where are we going? The Inheritance is a book of revelation. It’s an epic history, a journalistic masterpiece, a story of people caught in the swirling currents of our time. It reads like a great novel and lingers in your mind like a ghost map to America’s future.”—Jeff Goodell, author of The Heat Will Kill You First
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