cutting for stone abraham verghese summary

This theme is carried from the Carmelite Nuns in Madras to the trauma and transplant surgeons in New York. love of family) and the good career (i.e. One of the recurring themes of the book is the tension between the good life (i.e. The characters are compelling and complex - particularly the namesake of the novel and the father of the narrator. The finale of the book is far-fetched and is telegraphed, but in the context of the grand story, I suppose it is no more far-fetched than Ahab waving goodbye from the back of the White Whale. The plot is interspersed with technical descriptions of nearly every aspect of medicine from the fine points of surgical anatomy to the process of medical residency certification. It is not overstated to say that the novel does for Surgery and Medicine what Moby Dick did for whaling. The language and imagery are lyrical in many places even in the description of surgical procedures and cadaver dissections.

It follows the intertwined lives of two brothers from politically unstable Ethiopa to the United States. The plot has some refrains of the Kite Runner, also written by a physician. Verghese on the Diane Rheim Show on NPR and was impressed by his enthusiasm and idealism for the practice of medicine and the training of young physicians. 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.Īn unforgettable journey into one man's remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.

He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. 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. 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. 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.

A sweeping, emotionally riveting first novel - an enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile and home.

Cutting for stone abraham verghese summary