Cutting for stone : a novel

by A. Verghese

Paper Book, 2009

Status

Available

Publication

London : Chatto & Windus, 2009.

Description

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother's death in childbirth and their father's disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics -- their passion for the same woman -- that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him -- nearly destroying him -- Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.… (more)

Media reviews

Cutting for Stone - the phrase is from the Hippocratic oath - is about twins born joined at the head, in a mission hospital in Addis Ababa half a century ago. Their mother, a nun from Madras, does not survive the birth. Their father, a British surgeon called Thomas Stone, cannot bear the loss and
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flees, so Marion and Shiva are raised by two Indian doctors in the hospital where their parents worked; both become surgeons.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member tututhefirst
Cutting with Stone is a superbly written, beautifully narrated story of the lives of Marion and Shiva Stone, born identical conjoined twins in a hospital in Ethopia; they were separated at birth. Their mother, who died giving birth, was an Indian Carmelite nun who worked as a surgical nurse at the
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hospital where they were born. Their father, an Indian born Englishman, Thomas Stone, was the hospital's only surgeon who botched the C-section he was called to perform because the obstetrician was out of town. Dad disappears hours after the birth, unable to deal with a pregnancy he claimed to know nothing about and the death of his beloved Sister Mary Joseph Praise.

The orphaned twins were adopted and raised by two doctors at the hospital, Hema (the obstetrician) and Ghosh (the internist turned surgeon). There was an entire staff of surrogate parents to help in raising the boys. Medicine and its practice, including surgery was normal dinner conversation in the household. It was small wonder both grew to become doctors.

We are involved in the coups and political unrest in Ethiopia during the second half of the 20th century including the arrest and imprisonment of Ghosh, and the twins' later dealings with a rogue army bandit who threatens to kill them; we watch as the humble hospital in Addis Ababa continues to care for a diverse group of patrons, from the emperor's family to the poorest of the poor, with little funding and often crudely fashioned homemade instruments. We are given broad but specific (and sometimes gory) details of medical procedures in language the layman can understand, even though the amount of detail sometimes slows down the story. We watch as the boys mature, learn to dance, quote Shakespeare, and learn the art as well as the science of medicine from their parents. We see one of them fall hopelessly in love and then see one betray the other.

When Marion leaves to go to America, we are made brutally aware of the differences in medical practice in the two countries. It's not that the two countries have doctors of different abilities making the difference, rather it is the difference in resources and expectations that is vibrantly portrayed. Marion's residency in surgery at a hospital in New York eventually brings him face to face with his biological father and ultimately leads to history making and life changing experiences for all the family.

This book is long. It is 18 discs on audio (almost 24 hours of extremely well narrated story read by Sunil Malhotra) and 688 pages in print. It is difficult to do it justice in a review because, although written as a fictional narrative memoir, it is a novel with a spectacular ending that deserves not to be spoiled.

It is a story that is engrossing, exciting, appealing, easy to read and extremely difficult to put down. It is also one that I will want to read again and again. In both its print and its audio versions it is a story not soon to be forgotten. It is simply one of the best books I've ever read.
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LibraryThing member kidzdoc
This sweeping and masterful first novel by Dr. Verghese, who is a professor of medicine at Stanford, describes the lives of two Siamese twins, Marion (the narrator) and Shiva, who are born in a mission hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Their mother, an Indian nun cum surgical nurse, dies in
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childbirth, and the father, who is the hospital's surgeon, flees after the babies are born. The boys are raised by the two other doctors in the hospital, along with Genet, the daughter of the boys' nanny. The three children's fates are intertwined throughout the story, as rash decisions lead to tragic consequences.

Both boys become surgeons, but Marion is forced to flee to New York while Shiva stays at the mission hospital in Addis Ababa. After years of separation, both are successful, but one more fateful encounter leads to the final, unexpected set of events.

There are numerous medical and surgical terms and techniques in the book. However, I found it enjoyable and instructive.

It is obvious that this novel involved an extensive amount of research into the political and cultural history of Ethiopia after WWII, the practice of modern medicine in a major African city, the sexual oppression of women in Africa and its consequences, including female genital mutilation and vaginal fistulas, and longstanding and modern surgical techniques. Dr. Verghese was trained as an infectious disease specialist, yet it was easy for me to envision the operations taking place. However, I think I am most impressed with the Dr. Verghese's storytelling ability, especially given all of the topics he covers in this book.
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LibraryThing member Smiler69
From the distance of his fifty years, Marion Stone looks back on his personal history. First describing how his mother, a young nun and his surgeon father came to meet on an eventful boat voyage from to India to East Africa and how their unavowed love for each other led to the birth, seven years
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later in the 1950s, of identical twins, Marion and Shiva; an impossibly difficult delivery spelled doom for their mother and the disappearance of their father. Raised by two doctors who had been friends and co-workers of the biological parents, Marion goes on to describe growing up with a brother to whom he felt an almost spiritual connection, yet was as different in character as he was similar in appearance, and how a girl and a major breach of trust came to separate the two in their adolescence. Set against the very unique background of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, and great political turmoil, which eventually forces Marion to leave his loved ones behind and flee for his life, the novel travels from Addis Ababa to New York and Boston, and back again. While living in the States our narrator becomes a surgeon and eventually meets his father, who has become a prominent figure in the medical establishment. Following an unexpected meeting with a woman from his past, Marion falls critically ill and his family will rally around him in a desperate effort to save his life.

While I was immediately and irresistibly pulled into the story and fell in love with the beautiful writing, I balked at the frequent graphic descriptions of medical conditions and procedures, though could well understand how a novel with medicine and surgery as one of it's main themes must be so, and also came to see toward the end of the novel that these were essential in the telling of the story. I loved that the events were rooted in a solid historical, social and political context, and the perspective of a native Ethiopian describing both his own country and his perspective on life in America. I found the strong love and bond between the twins and their adoptive parents—who were both wonderfully well drawn and well-rounded characters—both moving and lovely to read about. The relationships seemed absolutely real, and were peppered with the kinds of unique moments a family shares and which could only be so well described by a very talented author. Surprisingly, the only character in the story that remained a mystery to me was that of Shiva, and while this was something I found fault with at first, thinking back on it, I came to understand that this was entirely in keeping with the mystery he constitutes even to his own twin, and made perfect sense when one considers all that he eventually comes to embody in this unforgettable novel. Definitely recommended. I listened to the audio version which is also excellently narrated by Sunil Malhotra.
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LibraryThing member Cariola
What a wonderful novel, and what fine writing. (NO SPOILERS--all of what follows is on the book jacket). It's narrated by Marion, one of a set of conjoined twins born to a nun (who goes into labor without anyone knowing it) in an Ethiopian mission hospital in the 1960s; their father, everyone
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suspects, is the chief surgeon, who promptly runs off when he fails to operate to save the distressed mother. The twins, Marion and Shiva, joined only by a fleshy bridge at the head, are separated at birth and raised by two Indian doctors who work at the hospital.

The novel gives fascinating insights into the cultural and political situation in Ethiopia, as well as developing unforgettable characters and unforgettable but believable relationships that move across time and space. If I had to make one criticism, it would be that Verghese, a doctor himself, sometimes get a bit too caught up in the details of diagnosis and surgery; these sections can drag for the non-medical expert reader. But this is a very small flaw in an otherwise fine novel.
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LibraryThing member JGoto
Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone is a breathtaking piece of literary fiction, set in Ethiopia. His narrator, Marion, is an identical twin, born to an Indian nun and a British doctor, and raised by Indian doctors in an impoverished hospital in Ethiopia. The characters in this novel are brought
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to life by Verghese’s stunning observations of both physical details and the emotions that are evoked by ordinary and not so ordinary events. The reader willingly suspends belief when Marion tells us that he can remember his birth and the time that follows. He describes a minor daily occurrence and the accompanying complex feelings that even a two month old can experience.

“I laugh uncontrollably in anticipation, tuck my chin into my body, because I know Rosina’s fingers, which are like icicles, will soon stroke my cheek. The first time she did this, I was startled into laughter instead of tears, a mistake, because it has encouraged this ritual that I dread and anticipate every day.”

Cutting for Stone is a story of hospitals and medicine. Verghese is a doctor himself, so the book is filled with detailed descriptions of medical conditions and procedures. The book gives us snapshots of life in Ethiopia, successful and attempted coups, and the Eritrean struggle for independence. It is also the story of family. When Marion’s mother dies during childbirth, his father abandons him and his brother. The novel is partly the story of Marion’s longing to fill the gaping hole created by his parents. It is a story of the close-knit family created by the people who raised him. Perhaps most importantly, it is the story of twins, and the ties that bind them. This is a book that I read slowly because I didn’t want it to end. It is a dazzling fictional debut that deeply moved me. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member AlCracka
But it was only now, near the end, and far too late, that the pieces suddenly - dreadfully - clicked into place. Like a long Tetris piece slamming down, making a whole block of mystery blink and vanish. Only now did he realize what suddenly seemed so obvious: everyone who had suggested this book to
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him – every single one – was a middle-aged woman. This book…it was about the importance of family.

A wave of cold horror washed over him.

It would take months of porn and comic books to counteract this book’s effect. Months.
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LibraryThing member SqueakyChu
Before you open this book, decide to spend some time with it. It's a rather long book, but a very rewarding read.

Marion and Shiva are twin brothers, connected to each other at birth, but then quickly separated. Their mother, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, was a nun and nurse from India; their father,
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Thomas Stone, was an English surgeon who also had lived in India at one time. Both ended up at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where their devotion and camaraderie with each other suddenly came apart as Sister Mary Joseph Praise died in childbirth, and Thomas Stone fled the country.

The story begins well before the birth of the twins and continues far beyond their childhood years. The reader will learn about Ethiopia, Eritrea, medical procedures, family relationships, deep love, betrayal, and sacrifice.

I liked that this novel was well researched (just look at the acknowledgements and bibliography that follow the story) and that it dealt with the practice of medicine on a very high level (the author is a surgeon). My favorite snippet of this book came in one part that talked about "common nursing sense". As a nurse myself, I do respect this attribute and fear its absence.

When I felt that the book was growing a bit long, I never had the feeling of wanting to put it aside. I think that was because the characters were so believable and interesting. When I thought I could figure out where the author was taking me, I was constantly surprised. By the time I reach the story's conclusion, I realized what a treat this author had created for me (and others).
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LibraryThing member scarpettajunkie
Cutting For Stone is a sweeping, outstanding epic. It is without question a book to be read, discussed and remembered. It is a work of fiction that blurs the fine line between imagination and reality. The author gives voice to the lead character, Marion Stone, who narrates this story, which seems
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as if it happens in real time but is actually a remembrance of his past. Marion is a conjoined twin to his brother, Shiva. Their mother is a nun of Indian heritage and their father a British surgeon. Their mother dies in childbirth and their father disappears. Meanwhile, Ethiopia is in the throes of revolution. However, it is passion rather than revolution that separates these twins.

We follow Marion and Shiva as they mature and make sense of the changes happening all around them. Step by step we see the twins both develop a love for medicine that will take them in very different directions when they both fall in love with the same woman. Marion flees to New York, but his past catches up with him and causes his life to be placed in the hands of those he trusts the least.

This book is about healing others with the power of medicine but also is very involved with love, betrayal, fate and honor. We become intimately connected with all the characters in this story and the emotions are powerful. I caught myself on the edge of my seat and reading until my eyes were burning. I also wanted to throw the book because I would get so mad at certain characters.

I unequivocally loved this book and it is one of the best I’ve read this year. I wanted to turn right around and read it again. I would certainly recommend it to others as being a book that goes the distance.
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LibraryThing member Nickelini
I had been warned that Cutting for Stone takes a while to get into, but I didn’t realize that that meant the 666 page novel was going to be an excruciating bore up to at least page 340. And I didn’t realize that the first-person narrator wasn’t even going to be born until page 116. The author
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takes pages to describe scenes that sometimes shouldn’t even be in the book at all. And even when he describes events that should be interesting —such as driving through a rioting crowd (something that I’ve personally experienced and found terrifying)—the writing is so flat that I just can’t spark any emotion. After page 340 it definitely picked up and there were some interesting bits. But the whole thing was just too long and drawn out. One of the highlights was the medical details and stories, although some of them went into way too much detail; overall, though I liked what they contributed to the story.

Recommended for: everyone but me? I seem to be one of the few people so underwhelmed with this novel. I only got through it because my book club is meeting on it next week.
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LibraryThing member poodlewrangler
The first half of Verghese's book is fabulous. The last third, rushed and predictable. Can we please have a novel where the sexual woman doesn't have to be punished and die? Still, the medical info is woven into the narrative in a credible and interesting fashion.
LibraryThing member BeachWriter
There are two tests of a great book: First, you can't wait to finish it, and second, you miss it when it is over. Abraham Verghese has written such a book. I found myself reading it in 100-page chunks at a time. Now, I wish there had been another hundred pages or so.
The central characters of the
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tale are Marion and Shiva, twin boys born in the most unlikely of circumstances in a mission hospital in Addis Ababa and raised by an Indian gynecologist and her internist-turned-surgeon husband following the tragic and shocking death of their birth mother. Their childhood years are punctuated by civil wars and attempted coups. Their surrogate father is imprisoned because of his suspected involvement in a plot to overthrow Emperor Haile Selassie.
Despite an almost mystical emotional bond, Marion and Shiva are polar opposites: One is studious, the other intuitively gifted; one passionately loves their nanny's daughter while the other is incurably carnal - a conflict that leads to estrangement and suffering. In the end, however, the disparate threads combine to produce an ending almost as shocking as the beginning, and sacrifice leads to an unimagined kind of wholeness. If all this seems vague, it is deliberately so: I don't want to deprive readers of the wonderful discoveries that come along the way.
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LibraryThing member SamSattler
"Cutting for Stone" is one of those novels whose size and reputation could easily intimidate its prospective readers. It comes in at almost 550 pages, after all, and most of the story takes place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, of all places. Its main characters are Ethiopian, Eritrean, Indian, British,
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or some mix of those nationalities and, even when the action moves to New York City, it is to a part of the city few Americans know anything about. The novel is part history lesson, part love story; it is both a modern novel and a reminder of the kind of thing Charles Dickens wrote on his best days; it is a science lesson and a travelogue. Bottom line: This is a very special novel, a reading experience everyone should at least consider having. Pick up this book; flip through it; read a few pages to see if it is something for you. If not, put it aside and try it again in a few months. Maybe you will get lucky the second time around.

When Sister Mary Joseph Praise gives birth to twin boys, no one is more surprised than the people trying to save her life - even Dr. Thomas Stone, the man suspected of being the father of the babies cannot believe what he is seeing. Stone feels such shock and dismay at his failure to save the nun that he walks out of the lives of his sons even as they are struggling to draw their first breaths.

Right up to the moment of her tragic death, Sister Mary Joseph Praise and Dr. Stone have been integral parts of the Missing Hospital community (called "Missing" only because native speakers have difficulty pronouncing the word "Mission"). Now, Hema, the mission's obstetrician, decides that she needs to devote herself to raising the twins, and Ghosh, the only other doctor, has to transform himself into a confident surgeon. Marion and Shiva Stone will grow into young men surrounded by loving and supportive people but, to say the least, they live in interesting times.

The boys will prove to be good students and, with the encouragement of Hema and Ghosh, both develop the interest in medicine that will define their lives. What better place can there be than Missing Hospital for would-be medical doctors to gain countless hours of hands-on experience other medical students can only dream about.? Unfortunately, politics, in the form of military coups and Eritrean separatist rebels, will have tragic consequences for some of those closest to Marion and Shiva, even to the point that Marion is forced to leave Missing Hospital for work in a New York ghetto hospital. But that is far from the end of Marion and Shiva Stone's story.

Readers will be totally immersed in the world and characters Abraham Verghese has created in "Cutting for Stone," and will find that Marion and Shiva Stone soon become believable characters despite their rather mythical entry into the world. Their relationship suffers over the years but, despite everything that happens between them, the pair shares the kind of bond only experienced by identical twins. They are so close, in fact, that Marion often feels they should be called MarionShiva rather than by their individual names. The reader will also come to love most of the supporting cast, despite the fatal flaws exhibited by a few of them, with which Verghese surrounds the Stone brothers.

I do have one warning about "Cutting for Stone" (and I say this with a smile): Keep in mind that Abraham Verghese is a doctor and that he uses surgical detail and medical condition descriptions to add authenticity and passion to his prose. This is not a book to be read during lunch or dinner by anyone with a "weak stomach." Those who have read the book will know what I mean; those who have not should consider themselves warned.

Rated at: 5.0
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LibraryThing member brenzi
"After eight months spent in the obscurity of our mother's womb, my brother, Shiva, and I came into the world in the late afternoon of the twentieth century of September in the year of our grace 1954."

So begins Abraham Verghese's wonderful sweeping novel that takes us from India to Ethiopa to New
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York City and covers the years 1954 until 1986. The story is told by Marion Stone, twin brother of Shiva, son of Sister Mary Joseph Praise, a Catholic nun, and Dr. Thomas Stone, noted surgeon. The circumstances of this birth are not the strangest things to occur in this saga but with a beginning like that, you get the idea. You also know, after reading the first page, that you are in the hands of a master and that thought does not diminish over the next 533 pages. Verghese, a physician and professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, wields the pen just as he probably wields the scalpel. His writing is poetic and flows eloquently.

The story itself follows the lives of the twins; their mother dies in childbirth, their father so traumatized by the event (no one was aware that she was pregnant)that he abandons his children. The obstetrician who delivers them, raises them along with another doctor, whom she eventually marries. It's essentially a story of love, abandonment, bonding, coming of age and redemption.

Medicine plays as big a role in the novel as any of the forgoing themes and is the medium that propels the narrative forward. We learn a lot about medical practices carried on in the backward areas of Africa, as well as pioneering practices of great sophistication for the time.

Africa, and all the political upheaval transpiring at that time,provides another backdrop for the story. It's all wonderfully done by the author and you are carried along as Verghese allows you to unfold the many layers of narrative.

Something must be said about the intriguing title. The author explained in an interview that 'cutting for stone' refers to a part of the Hippocratic Oath that says "I will not cut for stone" referring to ancient problems with gallstones, where practitioners actually tried to cut them out, with no care for sanitation so the patient usually died a few days later. But the main character is named Stone, and he, his brother and his father are all surgeons, so there is that connection that cannot be ignored and provides food for thought. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member lit_chick
Cutting for Stone is a seemingly unedited, rambling story, which failed to hold my interest. It reminded me of Middlesex, with its tedious, and in large part irrelevant, introduction of well over one hundred pages. I found the long-winded medical procedures and the jumping around between characters
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distracting to say the least. When, after 130 pages, Marian and Shiva Stone, the main characters, were finally born, I thought at last to have arrived at their story. Not so – Part Two and another twenty pages, and still not a word about them. I abandoned the novel at this point, my patience exhausted.

Whatever the appeal that has earned Cutting for Stone its rave reviews, it escaped me.
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LibraryThing member amachiski
This book will transport you to another world in Ethiopia. My only negative comment would be the vivid detailed descriptions of surgery, vivid enough that those with weaker stomachs may find them disturbing. He plants you deeply into the medical world. This drama is very carefully constructed and
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his characters come vividly to life. Each unique character is strong, interesting and very human. Their conflicts are realistic and keep the pace of the novel moving forward. Even minor characters are sufficiently well developed so that the reader wants to know more about their lives. There is gentle humor, emotional turmoil, and great personal triumph throughout the book. Highly recommended for readers who want to learn about other cultures and get deeply engrossed in a book.
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LibraryThing member labfs39
Cutting for Stone has been on my "to read" list for many months. I was afraid to pick it up because of its length and because I need to be prepared before I take on a depressing book. I need not have feared on either account. The story is so engaging that I read in big chunks when I could and
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carried it with me, despite its heft, to sneak in bits when I couldn't. And although the book deals with some difficult topics, I didn't feel overwhelmed by them, mainly because the main character is so pragmatically hopeful.

Although skillfully interwoven, I feel as though Cutting for Stone is really two stories. One is the touching coming of age story of twin boys growing up in Ethiopia, and the other is the surgical development and journey of a doctor. I cannot recall reading any other medical fiction of this type, i.e. not biomedical suspense. Because it is so well-written, either strand of the book would have caught my attention, and together I felt as though I had found something new.

On the day of their birth, Marion and Shiva Stone lose their mother and are abandoned by their father. One of the twins is driven to try and learn their parents' stories, the other is content to live in the now of their happy life with their adopted extended family. These motivations help drive the plot. It is a fairly typical coming of age story: happy childhood, then growing awareness of sexuality, politics, and the emotional lives of others. Well told and set within the beauty and strife of Ethiopia.

That alone would have made a good story. But interwoven with this plot line are the stories of medical personnel, specifically surgeons. The nature of each doctor is revealed, not only by their role in the larger plot, but also by their work. Operations are described in detail, and the motivations and attitudes of the surgeons as surgeons are explored. Being a doctor is a large part of each one's identity, and Verghese is able to portray them so convincingly because he is a doctor himself, born in Ethiopia of Indian parents, and later practicing in the United States.

Verghese writes on his website:

I wanted the reader to see how entering medicine was a passionate quest, a romantic pursuit, a spiritual calling, a privileged yet hazardous undertaking. It's a view of medicine I don't think too many young people see in the West because, frankly, in the sterile hallways of modern medical-industrial complexes, where physicians and nurses are hunkered down behind computer monitors, and patients are whisked off here and there for this and that test, that side of medicine gets lost.

In the guise of a compelling fictional story, Verghese is able to bring his message of compassionate medical care, a glimpse into his personal life, and a portrayal of the impact of poverty on medicine to a much larger audience than the readers of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member msf59
Twin boys were born in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, in the year 1954. Their mother, a young Indian woman was a gifted nurse, that worked at the Missing Hospital where they were delivered. She was also a nun. And so the saga begins…These intelligent and talented boys were raised and
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nurtured in this impoverished and compassionate environment. They were enrolled in school but their real education came from growing up in Missing and learning all aspects of the medical field, from their colorful and loving “hospital family”. This is a beautifully told story, with rich well-crafted characters. The author, a physician himself, captures the operating room procedures with brilliant detail. Highly recommended!
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LibraryThing member pandareads
So rarely do books make me cry, but this one threatened to a few times near the end, and then finally succeeded. It wasn't a book I would have picked up for myself; the title didn't sound right to me and after reading the back I wasn't sure I would like it, but there was so much hype about how
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amazing this book is that I just had to give it a try, and sure enough, it was amazing.In Ethiopia, identical twin brothers, Shiva and Marion, were born conjoined at the head. After a violent birth, the story goes on to follow the brothers as they grow up, one is betrayed by the other, they grow apart, and then in the end, grow back together in a deep and serious way.The theme of medicine is carried throughout the book. I have no medical training, at all, so some of the vocabulary was lost on me, but over all didn't hinder my understanding of the book. It was interesting to read about medicine in an African country as well as the differences between American hospitals. The bond between twins was another theme. As a twin myself I was interested to read for this aspect, though I am a fraternal twin and my brother and I don't have nearly the close bond that Marion and Shiva have. Bigger than that, however, is the overwhelming theme of family. It doesn't matter who gives birth to you, your family are those people who raise you and stand by you through thick and thin.Full of rich characters and a sturdy plot, Cutting For Stone was a rare five star read for me. On a side note, even though Tsige wasn't a major character in the novel, I would love to read a novel about her that takes place at the same time, including the loss of her baby and her travels to New York. I think that would be a powerful story to tell.
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LibraryThing member Romonko
This book was given to me as a SantaThing selection and I've been waiting to find the time to read it in amongst all my to read books. I truly wish I hadn't waited at all, but that I had read it as soon as I got it. This is a truly wonderful book that is so beautifully written, it's almost like
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reading poetry. It paints such a wonderful picture of mid-20 century Ethiopia. It's all there - Hailie Selassie, the Eritrea rebellion, the Ethiopian culture and the wonderful people of this African country. The book is also a truly remarkable family saga about a family that is ripped apart when two worlds collide-an Indian nun and a very talented physician and surgeon and the twin sons that their union brought into the world. It is also a truly wonderful book about medicine and the physician's calling to that field. Verghese is a physician himself and he brings his knowledge and insight in the medical field to the pages of his book. The most remarkable thing is that this is Verghese's first novel, and in it he manages to carry his readers effortlessly away to another time and another continent. This is a beautiful and amazing book, and one that will stay with me for a long time.
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LibraryThing member bell7
Marion Stone and his twin brother, Shiva, were born to a British surgeon and an Indian nun in the country of Ethiopia. Now 50, Marion reflects back on his life, his family, and what brought him to where he is today.

In this, my second attempt at reading this book, I found a much different reading
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experience than when I first picked it up a year and a half ago. Then, I couldn't get past the first hundred pages. As much as I enjoyed the prose and the vivid descriptions, those same vivid descriptions of surgeries and medical procedures did me in. This time, I knew better than to try reading this while eating lunch and actually got past my original stopping point in one sitting. The characters are raw, realistic people and while I didn't always approve of their choices from a moral standpoint, I found myself liking them and caring about them deeply. Marion's story is poignant, sometimes brutal, but ultimately beautiful.
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LibraryThing member alexbolding
Huge disappointment. So here I was in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, having finished my other novel, and left with Verghese’s novel to read. After 120 pages of tortuous reading I gave up, borrowing a book from the public library to satisfy my hunger for books. I simply cannot understand what all these
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people and critics praising this book had in mind when giving their praise. Almost every sentence is pregnant with a sheer endless number of adjectives, resulting in a horribly florid style of writing. Meanwhile the plot edges on tortuously slow. But what really got me, is the self-satisfied, almost pompous way of contemplation that seems to pervade every thought of the main narrator. And the tendency to show off surgical knowledge of the human body. About the plot I will say nothing, I did not finish the book (and I left it in my hotel room, for others to ‘enjoy’). The book seems a good example of an upper middle-class take on Imperial Ethiopia, that will probably go down well with Oprah book club members, but certainly not with people who are familiar with and work in Ethiopia. Enough! No more.
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LibraryThing member browner56
In one translation of the Hippocratic Oath, the ancient pledge that doctors take when starting their medical practice, there is a line that says: “I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists
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in this art.” Used as an epigraph to begin a section somewhere in the middle of Cutting for Stone, a sprawling, engrossing, and deeply affecting tale by physician and first-time novelist Abraham Verghese, the passage is a suitable metaphor for much of the action in the story and, as the reader quickly learns, an effective double entendre as well.

Marion and Shiva Stone are identical twin boys brought up at “Missing,” a small, underequipped hospital in Ethiopia. Conjoined at their heads during birth, they are abandoned by their father, the renown surgeon Thomas Stone, who disappears in anguish soon after the mother’s death in childbirth. As dramatic as these initial events are, however, it is just the beginning of the remarkable journey on which Marion and Shiva find themselves. Adopted by the only other doctors working at Missing, the boys are raised alongside Genet, the illegitimate daughter of a hospital worker, to be doctors, albeit ones who will follow very different paths in life. Although similar in so many ways, the Stone boys differ significantly in others, including how they choose to resolve the mystery surrounding their parents’ story and their own birth.

I really enjoyed reading this novel, which succeeds on at least two separate levels. First, it is an truly satisfying story about the search for identity, the healing of emotional and physical wounds, and the quest to find one’s place in the world. Verghese clearly loves his characters and, I suspect, has embedded more than a little of his own history in them. In particular, the scenes of the boys’ passage from childhood to manhood are compelling and very moving. Second, while not exactly historical fiction, the book nevertheless covers about a half century of Ethiopia’s turbulent past, from the height of Haile Selassie’s reign to the political oppression of more recent times. The author’s descriptions of the sights, smells, and chaos of Addis Ababa, as well as those of the severe beauty of the Ethiopian countryside bordering Eritrea, are simply stunning. This is a tender, but unblinking, portrait of a part of Africa with which many readers are likely to be unfamiliar.

For all of its many qualities, though, Cutting for Stone is not a flawless work. At times, the story seems a little bloated and overwritten; Verghese often provides too many details about the lives of his protagonists and the myriad supporting characters. Further, perhaps as a result of his formal training as both a writer and a doctor, the author also includes many passages that presume in the reader a considerable depth of medical knowledge. As well written as these parts were, they undoubtedly contained some meanings that were beyond the grasp of this medical neophyte. Still, this is a book in which there is so much to savor that I undoubtedly will be thinking about it for a long time to come. It is also one that I can recommend without hesitation.
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LibraryThing member shejoh
What a book. I'm ashamed to admit that I picked it up and put it down about 10 times before I acually read it because the cover didn't do anything for me. The image of the boys on the front was bleak somehow. I never felt ready for a bleak story so I put it back on the shelf. In the end I found the
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storyline to be anything but bleak. I am amazed that a surgeon can paint such beautiful, emotional pictures with words.

The story is deeper and richer if you know something about Ethiopia in the late 20th century. I'd just read an incredibly mediocre book called The Prize by Nelson DeMille but it dealt with the same time and place as Cutting for Stone so at least it provided some background for this wonderful story.

If you have any interest in medicine, faraway places with complex histories, and the meaning of family (biological and chosen) then give this book a chance no matter how its subject matter initially strikes you. I'm glad I finally did. Best piece of literature I've had the pleasure to read in the past several years.
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LibraryThing member MEENIEREADS
Of all the blurbs praising the book, I think Simon Schama's describes it best: the book is indeed an "epic medical romance," celebrating the vocation of medicine and the sometimes visionary courage of those who practice it. It is not, alas, a compelling piece of fiction. I am quoting another
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reviewer here as that really sums this book up. I usually like to read about all things medical but found way too much long winded descriptions in this book. That would also describe my feelings in general about ALL of the book. For heavens sake it took more than 100 page to get the twins even born and then immediately we were off on another tangent! A good friend and fellow big reader said this book reminded her of The Poisonwood Bible and books by Wally Lamb. I agree only I add this one to the same list those two are on in my mind, list of huge books in serious need of editing. I found myself avoiding this book as if it was a term paper or cleaning the bathroom. As a reader of 40 plus books a year this was not a good sign! I did have such high hopes for it and that is why I bothered to read it.
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LibraryThing member bnbooklady
I love-love-loved this book. I hated having to put it down, and I missed it when I was away from it. I found myself daydreaming about the characters and wondering where their roads would lead. It very nearly brought me to tears, and it definitely made me hold my breath. This is a sprawling,
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expansive novel for which I cannot find enough superlatives. It has the perfect mix of character- and plot-driven elements and is a fantasticy contemporary example of true literary fiction. Hands down, this is absolutely one of the best books I’ve read in the last several years.

Read my full review at The Book Lady's Blog.
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