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In China, organ transplants to Westerners are against the law. But that didn't stop author Daniel Asa Rose from traveling to China with his cousin to search for a kidney. Not only did Rose go, he also wrote a book about the journey.
On Monday, Rose shared his book, "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," with an audience at the Westport Public Library.
The journey to China, Rose said, began with a phone call from his estranged cousin Larry, whom he hadn't heard from in 15 years.
"The last time I heard from him, he was trying to rat me out to the FBI for trying to inflate my income," Rose said light-heartily, prompting laughs from the crowd. "When he called me, he said he wanted to bury the hatchet, and that he's going to China in search of a kidney."
Rose agreed to go with his cousin to China, despite the risk of going to jail.
"My wife didn't understand why I'd want to help Larry, of all people, after all he'd done to me," Rose said. "He was my little cousin, and I loved him. Plus, Larry had a rough life, and I wanted to give him an assist."
Wanting to save some surprises when people read the book, Rose didn't share all the details of the journey.
Afterward, Marilyn Biggins said she can't wait to read the book to find out more.
"It sounds like an unbelievable story, but you couldn't make something like this up," Biggins said. "I'm going to reserve a copy with the library."
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