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REVIEW: Genetic Secrets in ‘The Dressmaker’s Mirror’

JL;DR SUMMARY In "The Dressmakers Mirror: Sudden Death, Genetics, and a Jewish Family's Secret," Susan Weiss Liebman, a geneticist and former professor, blends memoir with medical investigation to unravel a devastating genetic mystery in her family. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Ashkenazi JewsPogromsFamily HistoryGenetic TestingGeneticsHeart DiseaseJames WatsonCardiomyopathyMemoireMedical Investigation

Places mentioned

Chicago, Illinois, United States
"Susan Weiss Liebman, a geneticist and former biology professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, describes how she made a discovery that gave her the key to unlocking a genetic mystery within her own family."
Carbondale, Pennsylvania, United States
"She also found out that her family had lived in Carbondale, Pa., at the time of Eugenes death, and that his hospitalization was widely reported in the local news."
Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States
"Indeed, her grandparents, insistent on hiding their sons death, decided to move to Scranton, about 20 miles southwest of Carbondale, after Eugene died."
Kharkiv, Kharkivshchyna, Ukraine
"In order to escape the wave of pogroms, her paternal great-grandfather had emigrated with his family from Kharkov, the second-largest city in the Ukraine, in 1906."
New York City, New York, United States
"Meanwhile, her maternal grandfather had left the hardships and antisemitism of Czarist Russia for New York City, where he became a successful dentist."
Brooklyn, New York, United States
"After Liebmans parents married, they moved to Brooklyn."
New York, United States
"However, further study of Frieds heart, requested by the New York City coroner, revealed that she had died from dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), essentially an enlarged and weakened heart."

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