 | | Photo illustration by Pablo Delcan |
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[In this week's Race/Related, editors share an excerpt from a New York Times Magazine story about two writers, how we interpret our identities and what happens when art draws inspiration from real life.] |
Inside the curious case of Dawn Dorland v. Sonya Larson. |
There is a sunny earnestness to Dawn Dorland, an un-self-conscious openness that endears her to some people and that others have found to be a little extra. Her friends call her a "feeler": openhearted and eager, pressing to make connections with others even as, in many instances, she feels like an outsider. An essayist and aspiring novelist who has taught writing classes in Los Angeles, she is the sort of writer who, in one authorial mission statement, declares her faith in the power of fiction to "share truth," to heal trauma, to build bridges. ("I'm compelled at funerals to shake hands with the dusty men who dig our graves," she has written.) She is known for signing off her emails not with "All best" or "Sincerely," but "Kindly." |
On June 24, 2015, a year after completing her M.F.A. in creative writing, Dorland did perhaps the kindest, most consequential thing she might ever do in her life. She donated one of her kidneys, and elected to do it in a slightly unusual and particularly altruistic way. As a so-called nondirected donation, her kidney was not meant for anyone in particular but instead was part of a donation chain, coordinated by surgeons to provide a kidney to a recipient who may otherwise have no other living donor. There was some risk with the procedure, of course, and a recovery to think about, and a one-kidney life to lead from that point forward. But in truth, Dorland, in her 30s at the time, had been wanting to do it for years. "As soon as I learned I could," she told me recently, on the phone from her home in Los Angeles, where she and her husband were caring for their toddler son and elderly pit bull (and, in their spare time, volunteering at dog shelters and searching for adoptive families for feral cat litters). "It's kind of like not overthinking love, you know?" |
Several weeks before the surgery, Dorland decided to share her truth with others. She started a private Facebook group, inviting family and friends, including some fellow writers from GrubStreet, the Boston writing center where Dorland had spent many years learning her craft. After her surgery, she posted something to her group: a heartfelt letter she'd written to the final recipient of the surgical chain, whoever they may be. |
Personally, my childhood was marked by trauma and abuse; I didn't have the opportunity to form secure attachments with my family of origin. A positive outcome of my early life is empathy, that it opened a well of possibility between me and strangers. While perhaps many more people would be motivated to donate an organ to a friend or family member in need, to me, the suffering of strangers is just as real. … Throughout my preparation for becoming a donor … I focused a majority of my mental energy on imagining and celebrating you. |
 | | Dawn Dorland in Los Angeles.Kholood Eid for The New York Times |
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The procedure went well. By a stroke of luck, Dorland would even get to meet the recipient, an Orthodox Jewish man, and take photos with him and his family. In time, Dorland would start posting outside the private group to all of Facebook, celebrating her one-year "kidneyversary" and appearing as a UCLA Health Laker for a Day at the Staples Center to support live-organ donation. But just after the surgery, when she checked Facebook, Dorland noticed some people she'd invited into the group hadn't seemed to react to any of her posts. On July 20, she wrote an email to one of them: a writer named Sonya Larson. |
Larson and Dorland had met eight years earlier in Boston. They were just a few years apart in age, and for several years they ran in the same circles, hitting the same events, readings and workshops at the GrubStreet writing center. But in the years since Dorland left town, Larson had leveled up. Her short fiction was published, in Best American Short Stories and elsewhere; she took charge of GrubStreet's annual Muse and the Marketplace literary conference, and as a mixed-race Asian American, she marshaled the group's diversity efforts. She also joined a group of published writers that calls itself the Chunky Monkeys (a whimsical name, referring to breaking off little chunks of big projects to share with the other members). One of those writing-group members, Celeste Ng, who wrote "Little Fires Everywhere," told me that she admires Larson's ability to create "characters who have these big blind spots." While they think they're presenting themselves one way, they actually come across as something else entirely. |
When it comes to literary success, the stakes can be pretty low — a fellowship or residency here, a short story published there. But it seemed as if Larson was having the sort of writing life that Dorland once dreamed of having. After many years, Dorland, still teaching, had yet to be published. But to an extent that she once had a writing community, GrubStreet was it. And Larson was, she believed, a close friend. |
Over email, on July 21, 2015, Larson answered Dorland's message with a chirpy reply — "How have you been, my dear?" Dorland replied with a rundown of her next writing residencies and workshops, and as casually as possible, asked: "I think you're aware that I donated my kidney this summer. Right?" |
Only then did Larson gush: "Ah, yes — I did see on Facebook that you donated your kidney. What a tremendous thing!" |
Afterward, Dorland would wonder: If she really thought it was that great, why did she need reminding that it happened? |
 | | Sonya Larson in Massachussetts.Kholood Eid for The New York Times |
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They wouldn't cross paths again until the following spring — a brief hello at A.W.P., the annual writing conference, where the subject of Dorland's kidney went unmentioned. A month later, at the GrubStreet Muse conference in Boston, Dorland sensed something had shifted — not just with Larson but with various GrubStreet eminences, old friends and mentors of hers who also happened to be members of Larson's writing group, the Chunky Monkeys. Barely anyone brought up what she'd done, even though everyone must have known she'd done it. "It was a little bit like, if you've been at a funeral and nobody wanted to talk about it — it just was strange to me," she said. "I left that conference with this question: Do writers not care about my kidney donation? Which kind of confused me, because I thought I was in a community of service-oriented people." |
It didn't take long for a clue to surface. On June 24, 2016, a Facebook friend of Dorland's named Tom Meek commented on one of Dorland's posts. |
Sonya read a cool story about giving out a kidney. You came to my mind and I wondered if you were the source of inspiration? Still impressed you did this. |
Dorland was confused. A year earlier, Larson could hardly be bothered to talk about it. Now, at Trident bookstore in Boston, she'd apparently read from a new short story, "The Kindest," about that very subject. Meek had tagged Larson in his comment, so Dorland thought that Larson must have seen it. She waited for Larson to chime in — to say, "Oh, yes, I'd meant to tell you, Dawn!" or something like that — but there was nothing. Why would Sonya write about it, she wondered, and not tell her? |
Read all about the curious case, and the rest of the magazine story, here. |
| Robert Kolker is a writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y. In 2020, his book "Hidden Valley Road" became a selection of Oprah's Book Club and a New York Times best seller. |
Join John McWhorter for Woke Words, a Times Virtual Event |
In any conversation about race in America, or any public debate, words matter. How do we describe what's happening? How do we articulate what we think is right? What words do we avoid using and why? |
In his subscriber-only newsletter for The Times, the linguist and writer John McWhorter explores some of these questions. Join him on Thursday, Oct. 14, where he'll speak with Jane Coaston, host of the podcast "The Argument," about how we can get an honest grounding to successfully engage in the conversation about race. |
We'll also bring you an original performance from the musical work "Blues Opera," which may be brought back to the stage. The opera is based on a play written by the American poets Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. The Times' rendition will star Angel Blue, who opens the current season at the Metropolitan Opera. |
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