The Kinship of Strangers

About the Novel

A rabbi discovers his Y-chromosome connects him more closely to Palestinians than to his own congregation. A Palestinian archaeologist excavates Bronze Age remains that complicate every modern claim to the land. An Israeli geneticist and a Palestinian researcher collaborate in secret, their shared data too dangerous to publish. A Jewish convert realizes her belonging will always carry an asterisk. And at a conference in Amman, strangers who have been circling the same questions finally meet.

The ten interconnected stories of The Kinship of Strangers move from Philadelphia synagogues to Jerusalem checkpoints, from genetic testing laboratories to archaeological digs at Megiddo. Each story examines how identity-protective cognition shapes our response to evidence that contradicts our sense of self, and each story refuses the easy resolution that would betray its characters' complexity.

The novel culminates in a conference room in Amman, Jordan, where strangers who have appeared throughout the stories discover they have been circling the same questions all along. What they find is not resolution but recognition: the kinship of strangers who share more than they can acknowledge, bound by science they cannot accept and stories they cannot stop telling.

About Fractional Fiction

Fractional Fiction is a literary series that combines classical narrative structures with contemporary scientific research. Each novel uses a public domain literary source as its structural framework while integrating findings from current scientific domains. The result is fiction that holds contradictions without resolving them, that transforms through knowledge without necessarily healing, and that honors the human need for narrative even when resolution remains impossible.

The Kinship of Strangers is the third novel in the series, following The Dying Grove (mycorrhizal networks and forest consciousness) and The Inheritance (transgenerational epigenetics and family secrets).

Source Material: Dubliners by James Joyce and One Thousand and One Nights

The novel draws its structure from two public domain sources. James Joyce's Dubliners provides the model of linked stories building toward an earned epiphany, each narrative complete in itself yet enriched by the others, each character caught in a moment of recognition that transforms without resolving. The nested narratives of One Thousand and One Nights provide the framing logic: Scheherazade survives by leaving stories unfinished, by making continuation more compelling than conclusion. Like Scheherazade, these characters have learned that the story that does not end is the story that keeps you alive.

Research Domain: Population Genetics and Identity-Protective Cognition

The novel integrates findings from multiple scientific domains: population genetics research on the Cohen Modal Haplotype and shared ancestry across Middle Eastern populations; cognitive science studies on identity-protective cognition and motivated reasoning; and archaeological analyses of Bronze Age Levantine populations. The research is real, drawn from peer-reviewed studies that complicate every simple narrative about who belongs where and why. The characters are invented, but the science that disrupts their certainties is not.

Structural Framework: Linked Stories with Convergent Recognition

Ten stories, each focused on a different character confronting the gap between genetic evidence and inherited identity. The stories accumulate weight as characters reappear in one another's narratives, as connections emerge that none of them fully understand. The final story brings multiple characters together at a conference in Amman, where the convergence is geographical rather than resolved, where recognition replaces resolution, and where the only conclusion is the acknowledgment that conclusions are not available.

Excerpt

"Identity-protective cognition," she said, advancing to the next slide, "is not a failure of reasoning. This is the crucial point. The research consistently shows that the most cognitively sophisticated individuals are the most likely to exhibit motivated reasoning when their identity is at stake. Intelligence does not protect against bias. Intelligence is recruited in service of bias. The smarter you are, the better you are at defending what you already believe."

A hand went up in the third row. Nadia recognized the type: young, male, the aggressive posture of someone preparing to score points rather than ask a question. She called on him anyway.

"If what you're saying is true," he said, "then what's the point of your research? You're essentially arguing that facts don't matter, that evidence can't change minds. That seems pretty nihilistic."

"I'm not arguing that facts don't matter. I'm arguing that facts are processed through the lens of identity. The same piece of evidence will be interpreted differently by people with different group affiliations. A study showing vaccine safety will be credited by those whose identity aligns with scientific consensus and discredited by those whose identity aligns with vaccine skepticism. The study doesn't change. The processing changes."

About the Author

David Boles is a multidisciplinary creative professional based in New York City with over four decades of experience as an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher. He holds an MFA from Columbia University, where he trained at the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Graduate Theatre Studies. He founded David Boles Books Writing and Publishing in 1975.

His work explores the intersection of science, memory, and the stories families tell themselves to survive. He maintains an extensive web presence including Boles.com, BolesBooks.com, PrairieVoice.com, and HumanMeme.com.

David is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Authors Guild, and PEN America.