Memoir describes the good, bad, and ugly in its author's family tree

Sometimes, a book's author is separate from the story — and other times, the author is the story.

That's the case in an interesting new memoir we just heard about on NPR: Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation, by Maud Newton.

Like many of us, Newton has done research on her ancestors, inspired by the stories that were passed down from generation to generation.

And probably also like some of us, what she found caught her by surprise.

Newton discusses her complicated ancestry and how she decided to process it with Ari Shapiro, in an interview you can either read or listen to.