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

by Daniel Asa Rose

Overview

“One of the funniest, most touching and bizarre nonfiction books I’ve read.”
—Boston Globe

 

Larry’s Kidney is Daniel Asa Rose’s wild-and-crazy memoir about his trip to Beijing, China, to help his black-sheep cousin Larry receive an illegal kidney transplant, collect a mail-order bride, and stop a hit-man from killing their uncle. An O. Henry Prize winner,  a two-time recipient of PEN Fiction Awards, and a 2006 National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellow, Rose has written “a surprisingly fun, and moving, book with resonance” (Chicago Tribune).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061708718
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/27/2010
Pages:	305
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

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.

Table of Contents

Author's Note xiii

1 The Phone Call 1

2 McMao 12

3 The Larry and Mary Show 22

4 Making Love Out of Nothing at All 40

5 Situation Splendid 56

6 “Chutzpah” Is a Jewish Word 67

7 Good Luck, We Trick You 83

8 Anaerobic Memories 101

9 The Kidnap Cabbie 114

10 Welcome to the Super 2 129

11 Return of the Kidnap Cabbie 144

12 Shabbos Duck 159

13 Dear Florida Power & Light 178

14 Long, Long Live! 197

15 Knock-Knock-Knock 208

16 Thousand-Year-Old Panda 223

17 Fate Make Us Together 234

18 The Last Kidney in China 249

19 Long Live Larry 265

20 The Art of War 283

Epilogue 299

Nice Clear Morals, as Larry Prescribed 302

Acknowledgments 303

Editorial Reviews

Larry's Kidney, a stranger-than-fiction memoir by Daniel Asa Rose, serves as an enjoyable testament to the lengths to which we sometimes go to help family, even when doing so is a terrible, terrible idea…The ensuing adventure is the stuff of slapstick comedy
—The Washington Post

Andrew Ervin

Elegantly written and deeply moving, it passes the laugh-out-loud test with flying colors. A classic contribution to the annals of cross-cultural comedy.

The Forward

Skillful, funny, fascinating.

The New York Observer

One of the funniest, most touching and bizarre nonfiction books I've read. A remarkably talented writer, a great book.

Boston Globe

Mr. Rose writes a gripping tale, especially notable for its revealing look at modern China.

Wall Street Journal

One of 60 "hot books for summer -- the best of this summer's forthcoming reads.

Los Angeles Times