Who are we? What blend of gene, heritage, family or culture conjoin to make us who and what we are? How is one predisposed by an unknown past to the life set before him? Irish, orphaned and abandoned, a toddler is literally handed off to strangers only to be judged inferior and passed on to an exploitive spinster seeking support for her old age. Michael, a second novel by Ann O'Farrell, evolves from her first engrossing tale, Norah's Children. This...