Rating: *****
Tags: Fiction, Twins, Fathers and sons, Brothers, Literary, Sagas, Physicians, Electronic books, Medical, Ethiopia, Bronx (New York; N.Y.), Orphans, Lang:en
Summary
Amazon Exclusive: John Irving Reviews
Cutting for Stone
Cutting for Stone:
That
Cutting for Stone is a remarkable achievement._--John
Irving_ (Photo © Maki Galimberti) Starred Review. Lauded for his sensitive memoir (_My Own
Country_) about his time as a doctor in eastern Tennessee at
the onset of the AIDS epidemic in the 80s, Verghese turns his
formidable talents to fiction, mining his own life and
experiences in a magnificent, sweeping novel that moves from
India to Ethiopia to an inner-city hospital in New York City
over decades and generations. Sister Mary Joseph Praise, a
devout young nun, leaves the south Indian state of Kerala in
1947 for a missionary post in Yemen. During the arduous sea
voyage, she saves the life of an English doctor bound for
Ethiopia, Thomas Stone, who becomes a key player in her destiny
when they meet up again at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa.
Seven years later, Sister Praise dies birthing twin boys: Shiva
and Marion, the latter narrating his own and his brothers long,
dramatic, biblical story set against the backdrop of political
turmoil in Ethiopia, the life of the hospital compound in which
they grow up and the love story of their adopted parents, both
doctors at Missing. The boys become doctors as well and
Vergheses weaving of the practice of medicine into the
narrative is fascinating even as the story bobs and weaves with
the power and coincidences of the best 19th-century novel.
(Feb.)
Amazon.com Review
From Publishers Weekly
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