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

Jessica Pearce Rotondi

eBook - 2020

"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 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. 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-o...ld 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... more