Larry's Kidney: Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China with My Black Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a Transplant--and Save His Life - Hardcover

Rose, Daniel Asa

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9780061708701: Larry's Kidney: Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China with My Black Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a Transplant--and Save His Life

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061708704 ISBN 13: 9780061708701

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 2009

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A rollicking account of the author's attempt to help his cousin receive an illegal kidney transplant and get a mail-order bride describes how their efforts were marked by a disability settlement, a nun's forged recommendation letter, and the author's well-meant intentions to restore east-west relations.

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From the Back Cover:

The Adventure of a Lifetime (Really): A Madcap Odyssey of the Heart (& a Kidney) on the Far Side of the Earth (Hello, China!?)

Larry Feldman desperately needed a kidney. After two god-awful years on dialysis, watching his life ebb away while waiting on a transplant list behind 74,000 other Americans, the gun-toting couch potato decided to risk everything and travel to China, the controversial kingdom of organ transplants. But Larry urgently needed his cousin Daniel's help . . . even though they have been on the outs with each other for years.

Sure, Chinese law forbids transplants to Westerners, but that didn't faze Larry. He was confident he could shake out a single pre-loved kidney from the country's 1.3 billion people. But wait: Larry was never one tonot get his money's worth. Since he was already shelling out for a trip to China, he decided to make it a twofer: He arranged to pick up an (e-)mail-order bride while he was at it. After a tireless search on the Internet, he already knew the woman he wanted.

Backed by a quarter-million-dollar disability settlement (was it the icicle falling on his head or the truck rear-ending him?) and armed with an all-purpose letter of recommendation from a devoted nun, Larry ventured forth from his Florida condo on an unlikely search for life and love in the most cryptic country on earth. Conflicted about the ethical issues surrounding medical tourism, and with no time to cultivate even a single Chinese contact, Daniel left the next day, on his own dime.

So begins the quest of two star-crossed cousins to rejuvenate Larry's failing body and ever-romantic heart, while avoiding getting tossed into a Chinese slammer. An unforgettable adventure filled with Red Guards who waltz at midnight and former enemies who prove more true than family, Larry's Kidney is the funniest yet most heartwarming book of the year.

About the Author:

Daniel Asa Rose has won an O. Henry Prize, two PEN Fiction Awards, and an NEA Fellowship. Formerly arts and culture editor of Forward and currently editor of the international literary magazine The Reading Room, he has written for The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, the New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the acclaimed memoir Hiding Places. He lives in Massachusetts.

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