Overview

In the wake of her mother's 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. In 1943, nineteen-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. Ed's eldest son and namesake, Edwin Jack, follows his father into the Air Force. But on the night of March 29, 1972, Jack's plane vanishes over the mountains bordering Vietnam and Ed's past comes roaring into the present. In 2009, Ed's granddaughter, Jessica Pearce Rotondi, is grieving her mother's death when she stumbles across declassified CIA documents, letters, and maps that reveal her family's decades-long search for Jack. What We Inherit is Rotondi's story of her own hunt for answers as she retraces her grandfather's 1973 path across Southeast Asia in search of his son.

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9781541431546

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Jessica Pearce Rotondi is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. Her work has been published by The History Channel, Atlas Obscura, the Huffington Post, Refinery29, and Greatist. Previously, she was senior lifestyle editor at the Huffington Post and a staff member at the PEN American Center.

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