Available From UC Press

Mapping Fate

A Memoir of Family Risk and Genetic Research
Alice Wexler
In Mapping Fate, Alice Wexler tells the story of a family at risk for a hereditary incurable fatal disorder: Huntington's disease once called Huntington's chorea. That her mother died of the disease that her own chance of inheriting it was fifty-fifty that her sister and father directed much of the extraordinary biomedical research to find the gene and a cure make Wexler's story both astonishingly intimate and scientifically compelling.

Alice Wexler's graceful and eloquent account goes beyond the specifics of Huntington's disease to explore the dynamics of family secrets of living at risk and the drama and limits of biomedical research. Mapping Fate will be a touchstone for anyone with questions about genetic illness and the possibilites and perils of genetic testing.
Alice Wexler is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Women at University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Emma Goldman in America (1984) and Emma Goldman in Exile (1989).
"A fabulous read. . . . a book about love scientific research family fights duplicity compassion courage and pain. It is brilliantly written by one of the principal characters in this real-life drama. You'll be riveted."—Ann Landers