The Fourth Hand by John Irving

‘Imagine a young man on his way
to a less-than-thirty-second event – the loss of his left hand, long before
he reached middle age.’ While reporting a story from India, a New York
television journalist has his left hand eaten by a lion; millions of TV
viewers witness the accident. In Boston, a renowned hand surgeon awaits the
opportunity to perform the nation’s first hand transplant. A married woman in
Wisconsin wants to give the one-handed reporter her husband’s left hand, that
is, after her husband dies. But the husband is alive, relatively young, and
healthy…