Paperback, 670 pages
English language
Published Jan. 4, 2010 by Vintage Books.
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death 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.
Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined. --back cover
Started for book club but didn't finish. Would like to come back to it some day.
"He was teaching me how to die, just as he had taught me how to live." Gripping surgical story, technical but not clinical, made me want to visit Addis Ababa, and pulls back to the hard choices of love.
I will try to find the words to fully capture the love that I have for "Cutting for Stone." I have kept Verghese on my list of clinical superheroes ever since I read his memoir, "In My Own Country;" however, I had been hesitant to read "Cutting for Stone" because, in my experience, physician penned memoirs lead only to disappointment. Verghese; however, is as much a master writer as he is a master clinician. Although "Cutting for Stone" is a medical story (highlights include attribution to his characters the first living donor liver transplant, the discovery of caffeine for apnea of prematurity and others), it is not foremost a story about medicine. Instead it is an semi-coming of age epic about how people form connections to each other, push others away in the pursuit of perfection and ultimately about self-actualization through realization of human bond.
Despite such lofty ambitions, Verghese …
I will try to find the words to fully capture the love that I have for "Cutting for Stone." I have kept Verghese on my list of clinical superheroes ever since I read his memoir, "In My Own Country;" however, I had been hesitant to read "Cutting for Stone" because, in my experience, physician penned memoirs lead only to disappointment. Verghese; however, is as much a master writer as he is a master clinician. Although "Cutting for Stone" is a medical story (highlights include attribution to his characters the first living donor liver transplant, the discovery of caffeine for apnea of prematurity and others), it is not foremost a story about medicine. Instead it is an semi-coming of age epic about how people form connections to each other, push others away in the pursuit of perfection and ultimately about self-actualization through realization of human bond.
Despite such lofty ambitions, Verghese never lets idealism or heavy-handedness overpower the fact that "Cutting for Stone" is indeed a novel. His characters shine - each individuals, each with amazing strengths - the cunning Ghosh, the brilliant, fierce Hema, the sharp, quick-witted Genet and the genius but alien Shiva and the loyal, logical Marion - his language is evocative and beautiful and his settings are picture-perfectly described.
A review of "Cutting for Stone" would be incomplete without at least a glancing mention of it's treatment of medical education. What struck me the most was Verghese's characterization of the martyrdom that residency entails as being a defense mechanism. His depiction of the selflessness with which residents treat patients as being a form of indulgence was a little uncomfortably honest. That being said, what "Cutting for Stone" will be exalted for in years to come is the decency with which it treats international medicine graduates. The treatment of such graduates by American medical students is borderline racist, with training programs being judged harshly on the number of such trainees enrolled. It is common for IMGs to be treated with disdain, and Verghese's candor in describing the differences that they experience when they train compared to the training environment faced by American graduates will not soon be forgotten.
