Ask the Author: Cate Campbell Beatty
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Cate Campbell Beatty
Like all of you, I’m a voracious reader. I happened to be reading a non-fiction book about the oppressive and despotic North Korea, where its dictator, Kim, rules with an iron hand and cult-like persona. Then, while driving in the car, I heard a story on the radio about the lack of organ donors, and a light bulb went off…forced organ donation in a totalitarian nation similar to North Korea.
At first glance one may think the idea too fantastic and not topical to our world, but it does have parallels. For example, cases exist where a child is conceived expressly for the purpose of using his or her organs for transplantation in another person, usually a blood relative. As a lawyer, I learned of so-called donor consent lawsuits, which seek to compel persons to donate organs to relatives. Some countries have instituted “incentives,” both monetary and non-monetary. In U.S. congressional hearings, it was reported that China gives prisoners in labor camps frequent physical examinations, with special attention to their blood type and the health of their kidneys, livers, lungs, hearts and eyes — “the retail organs,” and their anonymity makes them vulnerable to having their lives taken for organ transplants. The totalitarian nation in Donor 23 came from my research of North Korea, with its personality cult worship of Kim.
In Donor 23, I sought to use the tale of Joan and the autocratic society in which she resides not just to entertain, but to discuss issues that impact us as individuals in this world—themes of right and wrong, redemption, and the societal devaluation of the individual—along with plenty of action.
But an idea, like a horse race, is not to be viewed at one point in time. Rather, it is an awareness, an inkling, that expands and grows, ever changing. My ideas for Donor 23 and the characters which fill its pages have been affected by the simple and the unassuming. All things, all my life’s experiences, contributed to it.
At first glance one may think the idea too fantastic and not topical to our world, but it does have parallels. For example, cases exist where a child is conceived expressly for the purpose of using his or her organs for transplantation in another person, usually a blood relative. As a lawyer, I learned of so-called donor consent lawsuits, which seek to compel persons to donate organs to relatives. Some countries have instituted “incentives,” both monetary and non-monetary. In U.S. congressional hearings, it was reported that China gives prisoners in labor camps frequent physical examinations, with special attention to their blood type and the health of their kidneys, livers, lungs, hearts and eyes — “the retail organs,” and their anonymity makes them vulnerable to having their lives taken for organ transplants. The totalitarian nation in Donor 23 came from my research of North Korea, with its personality cult worship of Kim.
In Donor 23, I sought to use the tale of Joan and the autocratic society in which she resides not just to entertain, but to discuss issues that impact us as individuals in this world—themes of right and wrong, redemption, and the societal devaluation of the individual—along with plenty of action.
But an idea, like a horse race, is not to be viewed at one point in time. Rather, it is an awareness, an inkling, that expands and grows, ever changing. My ideas for Donor 23 and the characters which fill its pages have been affected by the simple and the unassuming. All things, all my life’s experiences, contributed to it.
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