PERMISSION TO LOVE

In Devlin’s novel, a woman with terminal cancer uploads her ancestral DNA results to a website and finds a surprising connection.

A hardy New Englander, Jenna lives in Maine with her husband, Sam. She has a son named Drew with her ex-husband, Michael, but she has trouble connecting with him; he’s a chef with big plans for his own Middle Eastern restaurant. Jenna is worried about their communication, because he only provides one-word answers and she feels excluded. Jenna hasn’t yet told Drew that she has stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (“Stage four. There’s no stage five unless you count dead as a stage”). She’s still undergoing chemo, and she plans to tell Drew about the cancer when she finds the right moment. To keep busy, Jenna uploads her ancestral DNA results to a genealogy website, hoping to find unknown family connections. Surprisingly, she gets an immediate hit. Jenna writes to the woman, who claims she’s uploaded only her daughter’s results, not hers. Confused, Jenna pushes for more information and deduces that Drew must have been a sperm donor. The mysterious woman does indeed have a daughter, and Jenna, now thinking of herself as a grandmother, wants to meet her. The problem is what to do about Drew, since she thinks he won’t be happy about the situation. As her cancer progresses, Jenna is overwhelmed but desperate to keep her family together. Devlin’s novel is a bold and timely imagining of the consequences of modern technological advances and how they might affect loved ones. Jenna’s desire to keep busy and connect with family is relatable, even if some of her choices are perplexing. The portrait the author paints of New England and its residents is incisive and crystal clear. The questions she raises are important, with Jenna’s story confronting the potential of genealogy reports to tear people’s lives apart. The closing act lingers too long and descends into sentimentality, but the characterizations remain true to life.

An engrossing, highly readable story about unexpected connections.