This is one of those larger-than-life books that interrupts daily living and transports the reader to the author's world. Verghese lovingly writes of his native Ethiopia and tells some of its recent history through the eyes of narrator Marion Stone. The story begins in raw anguish as Marion and his brother Shiva brutally enter the world as orphans. The boys are identical in looks but opposites in heart and temperament. They live as one entity until their bond is shattered by betrayal.

They grow up surrounded by pain and healing in the Missing (Mission) Hospital in Addis Ababa. Verghese is an M.D. and medical procedures are described in explicit detail. It's no wonder that Marion believed that "the answer, all answers, and the explanation for good and evil, lie in medicine." (Pg. 270). And it's also no wonder that both boys are destined to be brilliant doctors. Shiva stays in Ethiopia, but Marion must flee to the U.S. for his life during the political upheaval.

This is a book about separation and family love that will make you thankful to be a reader. I felt a real connection to these characters and their unique circumstances. I highly recommend my No. 1 Book for 2009, Cutting for Stone. ( )

An exquisite work. Emotionally powerful. One of the best books I have ever read. ( )

From Publishers Weekly. 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 brother's 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 Verghese's 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. ( )

Twin African boys, whose mother (a nun) dies in childbirth. They are raised by two doctors in Ethiopia. Told from one of the twins, Marian's, perspective but the other twin, Shiva, figures prominently. Starts in Africa and covers Marian's journey to the States. An epic story that captures so much in simple powerful phrases. ( )

"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 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. ( )