Uprooted: Family Trauma, Unknown Origins, and the Secretive History of Artificial Insemination

How a journey of self-discovery unearthed the scandalous evolution of artificial insemination

By his forties, Peter J. Boni was an accomplished CEO, with a specialty in navigating high-tech companies out of hot water. Just before his fiftieth birthday, Peter's seventy-five-year-old mother unveiled a bombshell: His deceased father was not biological. Peter was conceived in 1945 via an anonymous sperm donor. The emotional upheaval upon learning that he was "misattributed" rekindled traumas long past and fueled his relentless research to find his genealogy. Over two decades, he gained an encyclopedic knowledge of the scientific, legal, and sociological history of reproductive technology as well as its practices, advances, and consequences. Through twenty-first century DNA analysis, Peter finally quenched his thirst for his origin.

​In Uprooted, Peter J. Boni intimately shares his personal odyssey and acquired expertise to spotlight the free market methods of gamete distribution that conceives dozens, sometimes hundreds, of unknowing half-siblings from a single donor. This thought-provoking book reveals the inner workings--and secrets--of the multibillion-dollar fertility industry, resulting in a richly detailed account of an ethical aspect of reproductive science that, until now, has not been so thoroughly explored.

Author: Peter J. Boni
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Published: 01/25/2022
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9781626349070


Review Citation(s):
PW Booklife Reviews 08/30/2021
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/0001
Foreword 08/06/2021

About the Author

Peter J. Boni credits his disruptive childhood, a state college education from UMass@Amherst, decorated on-the-ground service as a US Army Special Operations Team Leader in Vietnam (coined his "Rice Paddy MBA"), love of his family and friendship circle, plus luck-of-the-draw DNA with making him the person he has become today.

During his accomplished business career (high-tech CEO, venture capitalist, board chairman, award-winning entrepreneur), Peter has applied "lessons of leadership through adversity" from his life-altering experiences--themes found throughout his first book, All Hands on Deck: Navigating Your Team Through Crises, Getting Your Organization Unstuck, and Emerging Victorious. (Career Press, 2015).

An inspiring public speaker with a storytelling, audience-participation style, Peter enjoys an active physical regimen, entertaining and sailing with friends and family while at his Cape Cod residence and traveling with his wife to, among other locales, San Francisco and New York City to visit their growing family.