Author Event

About this event

Embarcadero Room. Please join us to hear Dr, Carol Peyser discuss her book, A Hidden Fate (She Writes Press, October 27, 2026), a literary novel interweaving multiple themes: the emotional consequences of genetic foreknowledge, the weight of family secrets and deceptions, overcoming childhood trauma, and the unexpected conflicts of vision and conviction that can emerge in love relationships. The novel has received a starred Kirkus review, and a BookLife reviewer described it as “great for fans of Lisa Genova’s Inside the O’Briens and Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water.” Early in her career, she directed the Huntington’s Disease Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital right when predictive testing became available to people at risk for the terrible disease. Dr. Peyser saw first-hand how genetic knowledge — and even the possibility of obtaining it — alters a person’s relationship to their future and to their family. Interacting with people deciding what they wanted, or might not want, to know about their future seared these issues into my heart. Later, as a geriatric psychiatrist on the Stanford faculty and in private practice in Menlo Park, she saw these questions multiply. Descendants of those with Alzheimer’s disease, major depression, and other heritable illnesses grappled with fears about genetic risk — and with the weight of what to keep private, and what to disclose — to whom, and when. These questions of genetic knowledge, secrecy, and their consequences are at the heart of the book. How does wondering what might be coded in our DNA impact us? How does knowing what lies in our genes change us? How are families impacted by the new possibilities genomic testing raises?

Description from paloalto.bibliocommons.com