Abraham Verghese

Digital audiobook read by the author.

An epic tale of one family in Kerala, India, over nearly eight decades, spanning the time frame from 1900 to 1977. The story begins with a twelve-year-old girl traveling by boat to her wedding to a forty-year-old widower. She will eventually become Big Ammachi, the matriarch of a family with an unusual “condition” – in every generation someone dies of drowning.

Gosh, but Verghese can write! The landscape is practically a character, and, of course, show more given the family “condition” it is vital to this story. There is a lot of drama in this decades-long story, from family relationships to adultery to tragic accidents to political upheaval. Verghese touches on classicism, colonialism, racism and sexism. But this is NOT an unhappy book.

The family relationships are loving and tender. Big Ammachi is a wonderful character. She holds her family together and helps to lead them into the future. And there are several humorous exchanges that help to lighten the mood.

And that ending. My heart swelled.

I appreciated the medical information I gleaned from this, as well as the information regarding certain historical events that I hadn’t previously learned about.

Verhgese narrates the audiobook himself. He excelled at voicing the various Indian characters, but his European accents failed. Towards the end, I had to remind myself that Digby was a Caucasian Scot. show less

A great long read full of all the right elements: human strengths and frailties; love and hatred; hope and despair; fate and irony; birth, death, and revolution. We see it all through the eyes of Marion Stone, one of a pair of twin boys born under traumatic circumstances in a mission hospital in Addis Ababa in 1954. Orphaned within hours by the death of their mother and the disappearance of their father, they are raised by two remarkable physicians who begin the boys' medical training at the show more age of 9 by teaching them to "read" pulses. There is never any doubt that they will both become doctors, but many other aspects of their increasingly separate lives are not so predictable. This novel has so much to recommend it---brilliant story-telling, character development, exploration of all kinds of human relationships, history lessons...and then there is the medical detail. If you're at all squeamish, you won't appreciate the descriptions of what syphilis, cancer, tuberculosis and other scourges do to the human body when left untreated or the detailed explanations of surgical procedures from vasectomies to organ transplants, but these are all essential to the intricate tapestry Verghese has woven in Cutting for Stone. show less

In a mission hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a nun suddenly goes into labor, giving birth to twins. To the shock and anguish of all involved, the woman, who was also a nurse at the hospital, dies during her ordeal. The twins, Marion and Shiva, are subsequently raised by two other doctors at the hospital and destined to become doctors themselves, but throughout their lives they continue to be haunted by the mystery surrounding their birth.

I was absolutely absorbed by this richly detailed show more and sweeping story of family, history and medicine. It was educational as well as fascinating and thought-provoking. In ways I can't quite put my finger on the writing was also somewhat reminiscent to me of Middlesex. There was one scene I wish had played out differently as it seemed uncomfortably out of character for Marion, but unfortunately it was also the plot device which led nearly to his demise. Despite that single reservation, I recommend the book highly. show less

This was a heartwrenching and beautifully understated little story. Between the glimpses into life as the only son of Indian immigrants and the pressure of their expectations and the study of grief and responsibility that comes from the death of a parent, it was a lot of material in not a lot of space. Verghese did a great job.