Why this book exists
A focused place to understand what is happening
Redmond is fifty-two and has had a kidney for three years. He can tell you exactly where he was standing when the call came, what he was holding, and what the woman on the phone said. He can also tell you, though he has told almost nobody, that his first thought after relief was a piece of arithmetic he has never been able to stop performing: that somewhere, that same evening, a family were being told something that ended their world, and that his own good fortune and their catastrophe were the same event. Three years on, Redmond is physically well. He has also written eleven drafts of a letter to the donor family and sent none of them, feels obscurely guilty on the anniversary, which he thinks of as their anniversary rather than his, and has.
The writing is designed to reduce shame, bring the underlying pattern into view and give you practical ways to respond without pretending that every life follows the same formula.
