Title: Cutting for Stone
Author: Abraham Verghese
First published January 1, 2009
541 pages, Hardcover
ISBN: 9780375414497 (ISBN10: 0375414495)
Rating: 4.3
Overview
Prepare to be captivated by Cutting for Stone, the stunning debut novel by Abraham Verghese. The story follows the lives of twin brothers Marion and Shiva Stone, born in Addis Ababa to a secret union between a British surgeon and an Indian nun.
Despite their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, the brothers develop an unbreakable bond and a shared love of medicine. But when they both fall for the same woman, their relationship is tested to the limit and Marion is forced to flee Ethiopia for America.
As he begins his medical career in a struggling New York hospital, Marion’s past catches up with him, threatening to destroy everything he has built. This epic tale of love, betrayal, and redemption is a testament to the power and beauty of healing others.
Cutting for Stone is a must-read for anyone who enjoys gripping family sagas set against a backdrop of history and culture.
About the Author
Meet Abraham Verghese, MD, MACP, a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine. He has an interesting background, having been born to Indian parents who were teachers in Ethiopia.
He grew up near Addis Ababa and started his medical training there. When Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed, he moved to Madras Medical College to complete his training.
He then came to the United States as one of many foreign medical graduates, but like many others, he found only the less popular hospitals and communities open to him. He wrote about this experience in one of his early New Yorker articles, The Cowpath to America.
Dr. Verghese did his residency in Johnson City, Tennessee, where he worked from 1980 to 1983. Later, he did his fellowship at Boston University School of Medicine, working at Boston City Hospital for two years.
It was during this time that he first saw the early signs of the HIV epidemic. When he returned to Johnson City as an assistant professor of medicine, he saw the second epidemic, rural AIDS.
It was then that his life took a turn for which he is most well-known – his caring for numerous AIDS patients in an era when little could be done, and helping them through their early and painful deaths was often the most a physician could do.
Dr. Verghese’s work with terminal patients and the insights he gained from the deep relationships he formed and the suffering he saw were intensely transformative. They became the basis for his first book, My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story, which he wrote during his years in El Paso, Texas.
Dr. Verghese was so interested in writing that he took some time away from medicine to study at the Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1991. Since then, his writing has appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker, Texas Monthly, Atlantic, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Granta, Forbes.com, and The Wall Street Journal.
After studying at Iowa, Dr. Verghese became professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center in El Paso, Texas, where he lived for the next 11 years. During this time, he wrote his first book, which was one of five chosen as Best Book of the Year by Time magazine and later made into a Mira Nair movie.
He also wrote a second best-selling book, The Tennis Partner: A Story of Friendship and Loss, about his friend and tennis partner’s struggle with addiction. This book was a New York Times’ Notable Book.
Editoral Review
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is a masterfully written debut novel that explores the complexities of family, diaspora, and the human experience through the lives of its central characters. Verghese, an Ethiopian-born Indian-American writer and physician, brings his extensive medical background to bear on this epic tale of two brothers coming of age in an Ethiopian hospital during a time of political turmoil and revolution.
The novel is a work of historical fiction that spans several decades, beginning in the 1950s and ending in the early 2000s. The story is told from the perspective of Marion and Shiva Stone, twin brothers born to a pair of Indian doctors who met and fell in love in Ethiopia.
The novel begins with the birth of Marion and Shiva, which is a complicated and traumatic affair that sets the tone for the rest of the book. In many ways, Cutting for Stone is a novel about the power of family and the ways in which it can both support and inhibit individual growth and development.
Marion and Shiva’s parents are both larger-than-life characters who play important roles in the twins’ lives, but they are also deeply flawed individuals who struggle with their own demons. As the boys grow older, they must navigate the tensions and complexities of their family relationships while also grappling with issues of identity, belonging, and purpose.
One of the strengths of Cutting for Stone is its richly drawn setting. Verghese imbues the novel with a sense of place and history that is both vivid and immersive.
From the sprawling hospital compound where the twins grow up to the crowded streets of Addis Ababa, Verghese paints a picture of Ethiopia that is both beautiful and troubled. The political upheavals that shape the country’s history are woven seamlessly into the fabric of the story, lending urgency and depth to the narrative.
Verghese’s prose is exquisite, and he has a gift for creating complex, believable characters. Marion, the novel’s narrator, is a sympathetic and engaging guide throughout the story, but the supporting cast of doctors, nurses, and patients who populate the hospital are equally compelling.
Verghese’s medical expertise is evident in the vivid descriptions of surgeries and procedures, but he never loses sight of the human toll that illness and injury can take. One potential weakness of the novel is its pacing.
At times, the plot meanders and becomes bogged down in minor details, which can slow the momentum of the story. Additionally, some readers may find the novel’s emphasis on medical procedures and jargon to be overwhelming or distracting.
Overall, Cutting for Stone is a beautifully written, thought-provoking novel that explores themes of family, identity, and belonging with depth and nuance. Verghese’s literary and medical expertise make for a rich and rewarding reading experience, and the novel’s historical and cultural significance only adds to its appeal.
Highly recommended for fans of literary fiction and historical drama. Rating: 4.5/5 stars.
