Iowa City in Literature: More questions about Stephen Lovely's "Irreplaceable"

Sure, we all know that Iowa City is now internationally recognized as a City of Literature, but I’ve long been interested in how Iowa City gets portrayed as a city in literature.

That’s really why I was so interested in Stephen Lovely’s new novel, “Irreplaceable,” which is set in a thinly fictionalized Iowa City called Athens. My column in today’s Press-Citizen (“Lovely’s debut novel has lots of heart”) focused on “Irreplaceable” as a heart transplant novel — which was appropriate since the reader I was interviewing is the recipient of both a heart and a kidney transplant.

But if I were to interview Lovely directly, these are the questions I’d ask:

* How do you describe this novel? Is it a literary novel — like those of your Workshop predecessors, a novel that will be studied in classes for generations because of its attention to language and form as well as plot and character development?

Or is it a didactic novel — a novel with a clear teaching purpose? And, if a didactic novel, besides length and readability, what’s the difference between the “Irreplaceable” and an extended, well-written pamphlet that provides a host of accurate information about the procedures and complications involved in a transplant operation? (Although my interview with Gregory Calvert would suggest that that “Irreplaceable” is simply too dark and complex for your average informational tract or pamphlet.)

* In a novel in which you go to great pains to be as detailed as possible about medical procedures, I find it interesting that you have to disguise the novel’s Iowa City setting while providing GPS clarity for where your characters are in Chicago. Why the need to change Iowa City to Athens, even though Iowa City residents can recognize the geographic features you describe so clearly?

Was the change of Iowa City to Athens in any way a nod to Larry Baker’s Iowa City novel, “Athens, America” (2005), in which Baker makes a similar change?

* The cover, title and first two paragraphs of plot description on the book jacket make “Irreplaceable” seems like it is going to be a romance. The next paragraphs show that its going to be — at least — a very complicated romance that involves a host of complicated characters and the consequences of their complicated decision-making. What steps to you take to ensure that you weren’t allowing yourself to fall into sentimentality when writing this novel? Or did you assume that the framework you set up would keep you from ever going too far into the sentimental?

* As the character responsible for the death of Isabel Howard, Jasper seems to be the character most prone to being a stereotype. You could have easily made him an upstanding citizen, a regular guy with a steady job and a stable life, and then explored how the guilt of causing the crash devastated him. But if Jasper was that kind of guy, he would have never approached Isabel’s husband or mother asking for information about who received Isabel’s heart — meaning that you wouldn’t have a story. To what degree is the completely socially inappropriate Jasper based on real people, and how much is he just a necessary feature of the plot?

* I’ve spoken with one transplant patient who said he knows stories — including his own — that would make the craziness described in “Irreplaceable” seem tame. Are you planning to continue writing about the group of people whose lives have been so disturbed and changed? Are you planning to branch out into, say, stories about people who have had face transplants? Or is this your definitive transplant tale?

Asking a transplant survivor what he thinks of Stephen Lovely's new transplant novel, "Irreplaceable"

Gregory Calvert had a major heart attack that should have killed him back 1996. That was followed by an unsuccessful emergency balloon procedure.

An emergency quadruple bypass three months later gave him a 50-50 chance of survival.

Calvert said he lived, but the surgery didn’t help. And when he tried to go back to work, he was told he was “no longer needed.”

That’s when Calvert was referred to University of Iowa transplant service. About nine months later, he had to go into the UI Cardiovascular Intensive Care, where he lived for four months hoping to get a heart. After nearly dying a few times, he received a new heart in June 1997, only to have his pulmonary artery burst as soon as it was put in.

Thirty-two units of blood and five days later, he woke up with a new heart and a bovine patch on his pulmonary artery.

But when he went home a couple a few weeks later, he found his life wasn’t made any easier with a new heart:
* His 20-year marriage ended 18 months later after his wife also had a near death experience with Strep pneumonia.
* A year later his kidneys failed, and he had to start dialysis for next 3½ years — until he finally received a kidney transplant in 2004.
* And he had renal carcinoma in his native kidney in 2007.

Calvert said he’s been good ever since — other than skin cancers and the other “normal post transplant things.”

I became interested in Calvert’s story because he — like the protagonist, Janet Corcoran, in Iowa Writer Workshop graduate Stephen Lovely’s new heart transplant novel, “Irreplaceable” — ignored all medical advice and found out the name of his donor.

Because Lovely is scheduled for a Prairie Lights reading at 7 p.m., Thursday, I thought Calvert would be a good critic for a debut novel that:
* Has sparked much lively discussion on transplant forums like www.transplantbuddies.org and
* About which a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly states — and I agree with — “Lovely does a great job of staying out of sappy melodrama as the gravity of Isabel’s death pulls the cast together in memorable fashion. The delicate handling of loaded material, attention to detail, and depth of character make this a standout.”

Calvert had a completely different reaction to the novel than I do, though.

Q: How true to life does this novel feel to you?
A: The short answer is, ‘Not very.’ … Parts of this book were very hard for me to read. I had to stop a few times. The needlessly gruesome detail of the procurement process was gratuitous. More “Sweeney Todd” than the truth of the reverence of this process, and the people involved. … And the idea that those waiting for a heart would watch the weather report hoping for a storm was way beyond the pale.

I had to wonder why — with all the people at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop who helped with this book — nobody asked Lovely to consider more than just process and making the story work. Did it not occur to anyone that the thought of having your loved one disassembled like a slab of beef at the butcher shop and then being hounded by a killer and a deranged recipient wouldn’t affect the donor process?

Q: How would your transplant experience have been different if you have read able to read this novel ahead of time?
A: The real process involves screening and education, which deals with the issues you will have post transplant. Great care is taken to make sure that you know that you will have a new reality. You’re life will not be as it was before. I don’t think there was anything in this book that would add to that.

Q: Which characters do you relate the most to and why?
A: Well, Janet, obviously. But I’ve never met nor even heard of a recipient so oblivious to or disrespectful of the process. Wouldn’t happen in a million years. The privacy and wishes of the donor families are sacrosanct. Period.

Q: What are some of the experiences with a transplant that someone who hasn’t gone through the procedure might have a hard time understanding?
A: The overwhelming theme of the transplant experience is that someone, during a time of terrible tragedy in their own lives, chooses to do something to help someone else. It is a message of love and compassion. A testament to the best of human nature. Being on the receiving end changes you forever.

Q: What other books have been helpful for you in dealing with the aftereffects of the transplant?
A: “The Heart’s Code: Tapping the Wisdom and Power of Our Heart Energy,” by Paul Pearsall. It’s a book by a counselor who has worked with transplant recipients.

And “Sick Girl,” by Amy Silverstein. It’s a realistic description of life post transplant.

I have to wonder about Lovely. … He can write, but there has to be more somehow.

Each year we have a transplant picnic. Last year a donor family who had met and become friends with their recipient attended. I wish Lovely could have been there. The donor family was embraced with heartfelt emotion from a hundred recipients as though they had saved everybody’s lives. It was the most moving experience of my life.

The gift of life is a sacred thing and deserves to be treated with dignity.