Dawn Dorland donated her kidney, but her story, she feels, was stolen. In the New York Times Magazine, Robert Kolker details a years-long grudge, and ensuing legal battle, between writers Dawn Dorland and Sonya Larson. Dorland gave a kidney in a non-directed donation (i.e. to a stranger), in what she saw as an act of righteous and praiseworthy moral clarity. Larson then wrote and published a story in which a character donates a kidney in an act of… well. The portrayal was not a flattering one—and, to Dorland’s mind, it got worse.
The question of how much inspiration writers can legitimately draw from real life has been a hot topic this year (previously). This story revisits those issues and adds light plagiarism, group text shit-talking, frankly unhinged social media behavior, notes of white saviorism and entitlement, the question of whether writing is an activity or a community, and a useful cautionary tale about indemnification clauses. It’s interesting to note what Kolker praises about Larson’s work: “Even as she allows readers to be one step ahead of her characters, to see how they’re going astray, her writing luxuriates in the seductive power that comes from living an unmoored life.”
According to writer Celeste Ng (who is briefly involved here), Dorland pitched the story to the Times herself. One wonders if she got what she was after.