I am both a psychologist and a novelist, with each of my professions influencing and shaping the other. Not surprisingly, I am fascinated by people- how they tick, why they do what they do- and am particularly interested in how people behave at times of medical and/or psychological crisis. The topic of organ donation had always interested me in this aspect, but particularly so after the tragic death of my brother at only 39. When the recipient of one of his kidneys reached out to my family three years later we were grateful and gratified… and the idea forI’ll Leave You With This was ignited.
Long-listed for the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, this French novel focuses on the 24 hours following the death of teenage Simon in a car accident and the subsequent transplantation of his heart to a terminally-ill young woman.
I loved that this story was told from the points of view of all involved: Simon’s grieving family and girlfriend, the doctor who must pronounce him dead, the transplant co-ordinator dealing with both families involved, the recipient ecstatic at her good fortune, but knowing that it comes at the cost of untold grief elsewhere.
Moving, informative, evocative, and terribly – perhaps ironically – heart-breaking.
The basis for the critically-acclaimed film, Heal the Living, directed by Katell Quillévéré and starring Tahar Rahim and Emmanuelle Seigner
Albertine Prize Finalist
Winner of the Wellcome Book Prize and the French-American Foundation Translation Prize
Just before dawn on a Sunday morning, three teenage boys go surfing. While driving home exhausted, the boys are involved in a fatal car accident on a deserted road. Two of the boys are wearing seat belts; one goes through the windshield. The doctors declare him brain-dead shortly after arriving at the hospital, but his heart is…
Possibly the best-known book revolving around organ donation, My Sister’s Keeper focusses on the ethics of living donations, and specifically whether thirteen-year-old Anna should be compelled to donate a kidney to her dying sister, Kate.
The courtroom drama and family dynamics may not be to everybody’s taste, but the central question – who gets to live, and at what cost – is a fascinating and important one.
Warning: the film version of this bestseller commits the most heinous of sins and changes the ending.
Sara and Brian Fitzgerald's life with their young son and their two-year-old daughter, Kate, is forever altered when they learn that Kate has leukemia. The parents' only hope is to conceive another child, specifically intended to save Kate's life. For some, such genetic engineering would raise both moral and ethical questions; for the Fitzgeralds, Sara in particular, there is no choice but to do whatever it takes to keep Kate alive. And what it takes is Anna. Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) and Anna (Abigail Breslin) share a bond closer than most sisters: though Kate is older, she relies on her little…
I adored this Young Adult novel, which follows 17-year-old Marlowe adjusting to life – adjusting the fact that she will, indeed, have a life – following a heart transplant.
Born with a congenital defect, Marlowe has spent many years preparing to die; now she must learn how to live, including returning to school, negotiating friendships and romance, and visualising a future for herself. I was particularly moved by Marlowe’s efforts to find the family of her donor, who in turn want nothing to do with her.
Happy endings can be messy too, and this short, sweet novel encompasses a huge gamut of emotions.
Bestselling author of All the Bright Places Jennifer Niven calls emerging talent Shivaun Plozza’s charming and romantic second YA novel, Tin Heart, “from cover to cover swoon-worthy, moving, deep, and funny”!
When Marlowe gets a heart transplant and a second chance at life, all she wants to do is to thank her donor’s family. Maybe then she can move on. Maybe then she’ll discover who she is if she’s no longer The Dying Girl.
But with a little brother who dresses like every day is Halloween, a vegan warrior for a mother, and an all-out war with the hot butcher’s…
Spoiler alert: this is not a novel about conventional organ donation.
Rather, it’s a rumination on humanity, morality, science, memory, and power. Following three friends as they come of age at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school, then have to face the truth of what they’re really being nurtured for.
It’s also a dystopian love story and scarily prescient science fiction, and if you don’t end the book with a lump in your throat so large that you almost can’t breathe you’re made of stronger stuff than I am.
One of the most acclaimed novels of the 21st Century, from the Nobel Prize-winning author
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense…
This is my only non-fiction choice amongst my recommendations, and one that I found extremely helpful after the death of my own brother, Piers.
The author’s teenage son, Chris, dies unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm, as did Piers, and his organs are subsequently transplanted into five recipients – as were Piers’.
Chris’ father chronicles this process and the healing that his family attained from meeting some of Chris’ recipients in this poignant memoir, which is suffused with both grief and hope. Have tissues handy.
The story that is now a major motion picture: 2 Hearts
No experience is worse than being a parent who has suffered the death of a child. It’s so horrible that the English language doesn’t have a word for it.
Chris Gregory, a nineteen-year-old Freshman at Loyola University New Orleans, had a girlfriend. He was rushing a fraternity and although he had had a rough first semester, he told his parents he was certain he was finally getting “this college thing right.”
One night during a casual after-dinner conversation about driver’s licenses, Chris’s parents learned that he had opted to…
The O’Shea sisters find themselves driven further apart when the one thing that held them together, their beloved brother Daniel, is suddenly killed. Allison is an overworked obstetrician, torn between her job and her young family. Bridie is a languishing film director, whose once glittering career is eclipsed by her husband’s rising stardom. Clare is obsessed by having a baby, so much so it drives a wedge between her and her wife, while Emma has turned to religion to appease her deep loneliness. Then, on the third anniversary of Daniel's death, Clare proposes an idea: they should trace the many recipients saved by his donated organs. Perhaps their brother's gift of life can bring them back together again?
Every picture tells a story, but it’s not always the one we expect or remember. Christmas Actually is a festive drama about family and forgiveness and a snapshot of modern family life, addressing Instagram to motherhood and everything in between.
Why Christmas? My publisher wanted my new novel to have a festive theme, specifically set in Australia–sun, surf, sunburn, and prawns. Christmas in Australia is very different from Christmas in the UK, USA, and Canada. We typically wear shorts and t-shirts, eat salad and seafood for Christmas lunch, and play beach cricket in the afternoon. Despite the season, conflicts, secrets,…
Time spent with family can be challenging, especially at Christmas actually…
Kate Cavendish is stuck in a rut. That is until a former colleague contacts her and offers her a chance to fulfil her lifelong dream of becoming a successful photographer.
With her focus pulled in all directions by her children, her pregnant sister, her newly-dating mother, and the niggling worry that her husband might be having an affair, Kate is filled with self-doubt.
Then as the countdown to Christmas begins, and memories of her own childhood resurface, Kate’s anxiety deepens – both personally and professionally. Can she move on…
