By Blood: A Novel

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

"A literary inquiry into identity and legacy, a gripping mystery—remarkable." — Los Angeles Times

"A rich, taut, psychologically nuanced novel. . . . A first-rate literary thriller of compelling psychological and philosophical depth." ― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

San Francisco, the 1970s. A disgraced professor takes an office in an old downtown building to plot his return. But he is distracted by the sounds coming from the next room, the office of a psychiatrist. He overhears the therapy sessions of a young lesbian who is in search of her biological family. Enraptured by the sound of her voice and obsessed with her story, the professor takes up the patient's quest as his own and discovers the disturbing truth about her origins. As he sends each new revelation to the patient—disguised as correspondence from an adoption agency—she is energized by the information, but finds herself unmoored from everything she thought she knew about herself. With ferocious intelligence and enthralling, magnetic prose, Ellen Ullman weaves a dark and brilliant novel about connection, identity, history, and the terrible desire to influence another life.

"A thrilling page-turner of a book . . . Book clubs of America, take note. By Blood is what you should be reading. Ullman is someone we should all be reading." — Newsday

"Ullman arranges her players efficiently, expertly. But what astounds is how she binds them to one another. . . . What a cast of master prevaricators she gives us, how far she makes them travel." — The New York Times Book Review

"Extraordinary . . . Proceeding in bursts of hydraulic prose, By Blood evokes San Francisco in all its stagflation gloom: the erotic danger of its nightlife, the coded nature of its transactions. . . . Riveting." — The Boston Globe