Novel was inspired by son's choice to share organs

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Two true things about organ transplants: They save lives. They occur all too rarely.

Part of the problem is that very specific conditions must be met, says Pam Silvestri, spokeswoman for Southwest Transplant Alliance, a nonprofit organization that works with other such groups across the country to get organs to those in need.

"For people to be donors, they have to pass away in a hospital on a ventilator because the organs have to have an oxygen supply right up until the time they are recovered," Ms. Silvestri said. "Only 1 percent of people who pass away in hospitals pass away on a ventilator – that's only 20,000 in any given year. And of those, about 5,000 are ruled out because their organs are damaged too badly, or they have a communicable disease."

The other problems are that too few people sign up to be donors and too few families know if their loved ones wanted to be donors, so that only about 50-60 percent of that remaining 15,000 tally become donors.

That, in part, is because to think about organ donation is to think about your death or the death of a loved one. And that is why award-winning author Patricia MacLachlan says she took 15 years to finish Edward's Eyes, a story about a boy whose parents donate his corneas after his death. Ms. MacLachlan, who won the 1986 Newbery Medal for Sarah, Plain and Tall, will speak Sunday at BooksmART at the Dallas Museum of Art.

She got the idea for the book when her older son, John, a photographer, returned home from Africa where he had been working for primatologist Jane Goodall. That's when she noticed he had indicated on his driver's license that he was an organ donor.

"As a mother, you say, 'Oh no,' as you play it out in your mind," she said by phone from her Massachusetts home.

And then, he said the words that inspired her novel.

"Someone should have these wonderful photographer eyes," he told her.

She wrote the first 11 pages about a magical, beloved boy named Edward quickly. Then she struggled. Because to write it, she said, she had to feel it. And for the mother of three, imagining the loss of a child was unbearable.

"It is the most raw book I have ever done."

And yet, the story, told from the point of view of Jake, Edward's grieving older brother, finds comfort in the knowledge that some of Edward will live on, giving new life to others. When Edward's mother learns her son's donation has helped a baseball player see again, she says to her friend Trick, "I don't know how to feel ... sad or glad."

"Both," said Trick. "Both," he repeated softly.

Ms. MacLachlan dedicates the book to John, who will turn 42 this month. John also helped her with the description of Edward's knuckleball on a Web chat from Tanzania, even sending her a picture of her 2-year-old granddaughter demonstrating the grip. The knuckleball, with its unexpected trajectory, becomes a metaphor for life, because "it's a pitch you can't figure out," she said. "You can't orchestrate for it."

Rather like taking 15 years to write this book. But John, she said, found it worth waiting for.

"He loved it."

DETAILS:

Patricia MacLachlan will talk about Edward's Eyes and her other books at 3 p.m. Sunday at BooksmART at the Dallas Museum of Art, 1717 N. Harwood St. 214-922-1818. www.dallasmuseumofart.org. $16, $10 students.

• Texas established a donor registry in August 2007. For more information, visit www.donatelifetexas.org or www.donevidatexas.org.