Richard Van Anderson has always been fascinated by the urban legends of people waking up in bathtubs full of ice, their organs allegedly removed and sold on the black market.
As a medical student in New York, the improbability of the situation troubled him; why would a surgeon keep the patient on ice when the common practice is to warm them up?
The question ruminated in the back of his brain as Van Anderson built an illustrious career as a cardiac surgeon, which led him to the Pacific Northwest, accepting a job as the chief of cardiac surgery at Seattle Veterans Administration Hospital.
But the job wasn’t what he expected, Van Anderson said, so after several years he traded in his scalpel for a keyboard to bring the myth of these black market medical thieves to life.
In his first novel, “The Organ Takers,” the Bellevue resident takes an updated medical approach to the debunked legend examining the world of transplant waiting list abuse, human stem cell research, tissue engineering and organ fabrication.
The book’s main character, David McBride, a former surgery resident, is exiled from the medical community after he and his mentor are found guilty of manipulating a liver transplant list for money.
Down, nearly out, McBride’s offered a second change to complete his training, but it’s not what he expects and under the threat of violence to him and his pregnant wife, he’s forced to illegally harvest organs.
Van Anderson said he initially intended the story to be a single book, but when he got to the end, he knew there was more to tell.
“I left McBride in such a dark place I had to give him a chance to better himself,” Van Anderson said, adding he’s already started working on the second and third books.
And while he’s had to self-publish this book, Van Anderson said the initial responses to the book have been positive and he’s hopeful the story will catch the attention of some of the industry’s larger publication groups.
So far, the greatest compliment came from his literary hero, David Lehane, who told Van Anderson the story has “great promise.”
Lahane, the author of such critically acclaimed books, “Mystic River” and “Gone Baby Gone,” taught a masters of fine arts class in Boston. Van Anderson was a student in one of his classes.
Van Anderson said he’s tried to model Lehane’s approach to storytelling.
“He always talked about the four D’s; ‘depth of story, depth of character, depth of insight and depth of language.’ It was my goal to take those and put them into my own work,” he said of Lehane’s style and teaching.
But before he could spend countless hours writing and rewriting McBride’s opus, Van Anderson had to leave a “fairly lucrative” career.
“It was a tough job to give up, but the caseload started dwindling and I wasn’t operating as much as I’d like,” he said. “I spent a lot of my time fighting for OR beds and surgical rooms instead of actually operating. I miss the operating room, but I don’t miss the politics, economics or bureaucracy.”
Since the completion of the book, he said he has “zero regrets” about the decision and is excited about the new career opportunity.
Van Anderson will be hosting a book signing from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan 27 at the University Bookstore, 990 102nd Ave. N.E., Bellevue.
Josh Stilts: 425-453-4290; jstilts@bellevuereporter.com
