“Surgeon/writer Richard Selzer was in his cups one evening at Yaddo. . .”

From Extra Innings, a book by Doris Grumbach about her life as a writer:

Surgeon/writer Richard Selzer was in his cups one evening at Yaddo [a writers conference] and he promised the diners at his table a free appendectomy should they require it. Someone said he would take him up on it—he’d been having a big of trouble in that region recently.

“Would you really do it for free?” he asked Dr. Selzer.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “But you’ll have to hold very still.”