Imagine suddenly inheriting tender letters from a renowned historical figure addressed to one of your great-great-grandparents. Now suppose that you lived and worked among scholars accustomed to posing and resolving tantalizing questions. These circumstances formed the tinder and spark igniting the genealogical investigation that Daniel Fallon records in this book.
Love’s Legacy chronicles Fallon’s search for hidden meaning in two letters addressed to his great-great-grandfather in summer 1817 by influential French writer François-René de Chateaubriand. Woven into the rich fabric of this work are elements making it much more than a suspenseful detective story. It is an intimate biography of Chateaubriand, offering meticulously researched information never before published. It is a story of forbidden love, fraught with passion and tragedy. And it is a memoir, relating Fallon’s discoveries as he pieces together the branch of his ancestry leading from his audacious father to fathers before him, each carrying a legacy rooted in the same star-crossed encounter of long ago.
Captivating and deeply humane, Love’s Legacy portrays the surprising impact people’s lives can have on those born centuries later. As clever as it is wise, this book reveals how recovery of the past awakens an awareness of inherited gifts that transcend genealogy.