“We live in a culture built around the idea of white supremacy,” says writer Maud Newton. “Less than three of my lifetimes ago, my family was enslaving other people. What portion of what I have do I owe to the descendants of the people my ancestors enslaved?”

Today, she joins Tuesday host Ali Muldrow to discuss her debut book, Ancestor Trouble, which recounts the secrets and contradictions of her own family history and what we can learn about ourselves through our ancestors.

Maud Newton is a writer, critic, and former lawyer. She is the author of Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation (Random House, 2022). Her essay on “America’s Ancestry Craze,” a seed of the book, was a Harper’s cover story in 2014.

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