This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Family Secrets is a production of IHeart Radio.

My mother always had her secrets.

I stood out of bed, too anxious to sleep.

The wooden floorboards creaked as I crossed the darkness.

I raised the window when the cool night touched my tired eyes.

Fireflies shone and died in the dark.

The silhouette of mountains glimmered on the horizon.

All families have subjects that are understood to be better not discussed, and we were no different.

My eyes shifted the shelf of neatly ordered CDs, settling on the face of the man my mother and I had not discussed for more

than ten years. His mess of brown curls and angled chin resembled mine. For years I had done all I could not to think of that man.

It was easier to refuse my thoughts about him when I was abroad

in the life I had made for myself.

I had rarely spoken his name since leaving home.

That's Sam Sussman, novelist, essayist, author of the recently published novel, Boy from the North Country.

Sam's is a story of hints and haunts, secrets and longing.

It's a story about possibly being the son of one of the most famous men of our time.

Emphasis, possibly.

It's also a story of a son's devotion and love for his remarkable mother.

I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets that are kept from us,

the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves.

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