Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese

This was Sarah's book. I loved it but then I like the medical bits. Am a fan of Casualty too.



Product Description from Amazon
Marion and Shiva Stone, born in a mission hospital in Ethiopia in the 1950s, are twin sons of an illicit union between an Indian nun and British doctor. Bound by birth but with widely different temperaments they grow up together, in a country on the brink of revolution, until a betrayal splits them apart. But fate has not finished with them – they will be brought together once more, in the sterile surroundings of a hospital theatre.


From the 1940s to the present, from a convent in India to a cargo ship bound for the Yemen, from a tiny operating theatre in Ethiopia to a hospital in the Bronx, this is both a richly visceral epic and a riveting family story.

From the Inside Flap
Transporting the reader from the 1940s to the present, from a convent in India to a cargo ship bound for the Yemen, from a tiny operating theatre in Ethiopia to a hospital in the Bronx, Cutting for Stone is a thrilling epic of conjoined twins, doctors and patients, temptation and redemption, home and exile – and a riveting family story, irresistibly charged with strange happenings, humour and pathos, that grabs you from its harrowing opening and never lets go. Marion and Shiva Stone, half-Indian and half-British, are twin sons of a secret union at ‘Missing’, a hospital run by nuns in Addis Ababa. Born in extraordinary circumstances, the brothers couldn’t be more different – Marion, introspective and eager to please, Shiva, a loner with fewer scruples and a photographic memory – but are bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared passion for medicine, and cricket. They come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. The Italians have left behind in Addis cappuccino machines and Campari umbrellas. But they've also left a nation crippled by poverty, hunger, and authoritarian rule: Ethiopia in the 1960s and 1970s is both bolstered and trapped by its emperor, Haile Selassie. Yet it will be love, not politics – their passion for the same woman – that tears the twins apart and forces Marion to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as a surgical intern at an underfunded, overcrowded hospital.When the past catches up with him, in a stunning twist, Marion must trust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world. Cutting for Stone is both an unforgettable story of lives cut in half and a gripping evocation of the power, intimacy, danger and curious beauty of the art of medicine. A masterly debut novel, it is visceral in its power, heartbreaking in its tenderness. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From the Back Cover
‘This huge, rich, ambitious tapestry of a novel makes insomnia a pleasure … tremendous’ The Times


‘Verghese’s achievement is to make the reader feel there really is something at stake – birth, love, death, war, loyalty’ Guardian:



Marion and Shiva Stone, born in a mission hospital in Ethiopia in the 1950s, are twin sons of an illicit union between an Indian nun and British doctor. Bound by birth but with widely different temperaments they grow up together, in a country on the brink of revolution, until a betrayal splits them apart. But fate has not finished with them – they will be brought together once more, in the sterile surroundings of a hospital theatre.


From the 1940s to the present, from a convent in India to a cargo ship bound for the Yemen, from a tiny operating theatre in Ethiopia to a hospital in the Bronx, this is both a richly visceral epic and a riveting family story.



‘A sweeping saga of family life, love, betrayal and redemption…driven by the author’s natural storytelling ability as well as the charm and believability of his characters’ Psychologies


‘This is a big book and, along with Naipaul and Waugh and Dickens, there is also a strong flavour of William Boyd …In Verghese’s lovely book, there is a heart to be uncovered’Independent

About the Author
Born and brought up of Indian parents in Ethiopia, Abraham Verghese qualified as a doctor in Madras and is currently professor of medicine at Stanford University, California. He is the author of My Own Country, an NBCC finalist made into a film directed by Mira Nair, and The Tennis Partner, a New York Times Notable Book. His essays and stories have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Esquire, Granta, New York Times Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Palo Alto, California.