A Fatal Inheritance
How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery
How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery
 Angela, Gina, Larry and Paul Ingrassia, circa 1957.
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When my mom died at age 42 in 1968, cancer was pretty much a black box. The next year, two young doctors who had stumbled across a handful of cancer-prone families wrote a paper suggesting that the seemingly unrelated tumors might be hereditary. Most cancer researchers expressed skepticism. As the decades passed and the two doctors continued their research, one of my sisters died at age 24, and the other at age 32. Then my brother's son got cancer when he was just 2, and my brother was diagnosed with cancer when he was 47. My family, we would belatedly learn, had inherited a genetic mutation predisposing us to cancer - the same mutation causing the multiple tumors in the families first studied in the 1960s. My latest book, A Fatal Inheritance - part memoir, part medical mystery - chronicles my family's search for answers about our tragic cancer history and the parallel journey by two medical outsiders whose tenacity would help to greatly expand the understanding of cancer genetics and lead to advances in care that would save many lives. A heartbreaking story of family loss and an inspiring story of scientific achievement, it will be published by the Henry Holt imprint of Macmillan in 2024.
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"In Billion Dollar Brand Club, the veteran business journalist Lawrence Ingrassia (a former editor at The New York Times) ferrets out the most compelling, consequential stories and people behind the direct-to-consumer revolution. He weaves riveting tales of legacy brands caught resting on their laurels, the hungry newcomers who outsmarted them and a network of prescient investors working behind the scenes." The New York Times
"Far more than a journalistic take on unorthodox online retailers . . . [Ingrassia] offers an insightful description of how entrepreneurs armed with little more than an idea have undermined powerful incumbents in industries that once enjoyed tantalizing profit margins." Wall Street Journal
Accolades for Billion Dollar Brand Club:
- No. 2 on Inc. magazine's list of "10 Best New Business Books of 2020"
- Selected for "Best in Business Book Awards" shortlist for 2020. SABEW Best in Business
- "Editors' Choice: New Books We Recommend," The New York Times
- Chosen as one of "The 20 Best Business Books of 2020" by Entrepreneur's Handbook
"Far more than a journalistic take on unorthodox online retailers . . . [Ingrassia] offers an insightful description of how entrepreneurs armed with little more than an idea have undermined powerful incumbents in industries that once enjoyed tantalizing profit margins." Wall Street Journal
Accolades for Billion Dollar Brand Club:
- No. 2 on Inc. magazine's list of "10 Best New Business Books of 2020"
- Selected for "Best in Business Book Awards" shortlist for 2020. SABEW Best in Business
- "Editors' Choice: New Books We Recommend," The New York Times
- Chosen as one of "The 20 Best Business Books of 2020" by Entrepreneur's Handbook
Order Your Copy:
A leading financial journalist takes us inside a business revolution: the upstart brands taking on the empires that long dominated the trillion-dollar consumer economy.
“Billion Dollar Brand Club is a fascinating, eye-opening adventure tour through the companies remaking our economy and lives. Lawrence Ingrassia’s stories of how start-ups have transformed nearly everything—from how we buy and sell to how we work and live—are critical reading. If you want to understand why you’re buying razors, or mattresses, or nearly everything else in a totally new way, then BUY THIS BOOK.”
--Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better
“In Silicon Valley, billion dollar companies were once called ‘unicorns’ because they were so rare. These businesses have disrupted the entire retail sector, but until now no one has really understood how they did it. Lawrence Ingrassia’s fascinating, fast-paced, and truly elucidating book details how a herd of unicorns changed the way we live, and will continue to disrupt the business world for decades to come.”
--Nick Bilton, special correspondent, Vanity Fair, and author of Hatching Twitter
“Billion Dollar Brand Club chronicles the seismic changes rocking retail. Lawrence Ingrassia does a masterful job illuminating the new breed of internet-forged brands and the savvy entrepreneurs who have overthrown decades of thinking about what it means to sell.”
--Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store
“Lawrence Ingrassia has given us an exhilarating behind-the-scenes look at the personalities and processes shaping what we buy and how. Every page is full of insight and real-world stories about what it takes to create a product and brand that will be around for the long term in a world where things move faster than ever.”
--Eric Ries, author of The Startup Way and The Lean Startup, and founder and CEO of LTSE
“In the last few years, upstart brands have come out of nowhere to take over huge businesses. Think Warby Parker, Casper, and Dollar Shave Club. How did they do it? That’s the question everyone, from consumers to the big brands who previously owned these categories, wants to know. Lawrence Ingrassia’s engaging, must-read new book, Billion Dollar Brand Club, has the answers.”
--Bethany McLean, coauthor of The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils Are Here
“Billion Dollar Brand Club is a fascinating, eye-opening adventure tour through the companies remaking our economy and lives. Lawrence Ingrassia’s stories of how start-ups have transformed nearly everything—from how we buy and sell to how we work and live—are critical reading. If you want to understand why you’re buying razors, or mattresses, or nearly everything else in a totally new way, then BUY THIS BOOK.”
--Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better
“In Silicon Valley, billion dollar companies were once called ‘unicorns’ because they were so rare. These businesses have disrupted the entire retail sector, but until now no one has really understood how they did it. Lawrence Ingrassia’s fascinating, fast-paced, and truly elucidating book details how a herd of unicorns changed the way we live, and will continue to disrupt the business world for decades to come.”
--Nick Bilton, special correspondent, Vanity Fair, and author of Hatching Twitter
“Billion Dollar Brand Club chronicles the seismic changes rocking retail. Lawrence Ingrassia does a masterful job illuminating the new breed of internet-forged brands and the savvy entrepreneurs who have overthrown decades of thinking about what it means to sell.”
--Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store
“Lawrence Ingrassia has given us an exhilarating behind-the-scenes look at the personalities and processes shaping what we buy and how. Every page is full of insight and real-world stories about what it takes to create a product and brand that will be around for the long term in a world where things move faster than ever.”
--Eric Ries, author of The Startup Way and The Lean Startup, and founder and CEO of LTSE
“In the last few years, upstart brands have come out of nowhere to take over huge businesses. Think Warby Parker, Casper, and Dollar Shave Club. How did they do it? That’s the question everyone, from consumers to the big brands who previously owned these categories, wants to know. Lawrence Ingrassia’s engaging, must-read new book, Billion Dollar Brand Club, has the answers.”
--Bethany McLean, coauthor of The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils Are Here
Who I am
I got hooked on journalism as student at the University of Illinois in the early 1970s, and stayed hooked for more than four decades. I've worked with the best in the business at the best papers in America - the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times.
During my career, I have interviewed prime ministers (of Iceland) and future prime ministers (of Britain). I have been deposed by lawyers for Donald Trump (before he became president). I have covered tense international trade negotiations, foretold why the euro currency would face many challenges, written about the legalization of gay marriage in Europe (many years earlier than in the U.S.) and profiled the last manned fire watchtower in the woods of northern Maine. I witnessed the collapse of the Twin Towers across the street from the WSJ offices on 9/11.
Why journalism? I love the energy, the passion, the dedication, the people. After many years of editing, I have returned to writing. My first book - "Billion Dollar Brand Club," about upstart brands taking on corporate giants that long dominated the trillion-dollar consumer economy - was published Jan. 28, 2020.
I got hooked on journalism as student at the University of Illinois in the early 1970s, and stayed hooked for more than four decades. I've worked with the best in the business at the best papers in America - the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times.
During my career, I have interviewed prime ministers (of Iceland) and future prime ministers (of Britain). I have been deposed by lawyers for Donald Trump (before he became president). I have covered tense international trade negotiations, foretold why the euro currency would face many challenges, written about the legalization of gay marriage in Europe (many years earlier than in the U.S.) and profiled the last manned fire watchtower in the woods of northern Maine. I witnessed the collapse of the Twin Towers across the street from the WSJ offices on 9/11.
Why journalism? I love the energy, the passion, the dedication, the people. After many years of editing, I have returned to writing. My first book - "Billion Dollar Brand Club," about upstart brands taking on corporate giants that long dominated the trillion-dollar consumer economy - was published Jan. 28, 2020.