Cutting for Stone

Audiobook performed by Sunil Malhotra
5***** and a HEART

This is an epic story of twin boys, born of an Indian nun and a British surgeon working side-by-side in an Ethiopian hospital, but raised by two other Indian physicians and the staff of Missing Hospital. The tale is told by Marion, one of the twins, and describes not just their insular lives in the hospital compound, but the issues of poverty and political unrest in Ethiopia which so affect their ability to fulfill their mission.

Verghesse is a masterful storyteller, who wields his pen with surgical precision. The landscape and characters come to life on the page, letting the reader experience the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures of Ethiopia and the hospitals both there show more and in New York where Marion finishes his training.

There are several themes throughout – betrayal, forgiveness, and compassion. At its core is the central question … can you forgive a betrayal from those closest to you? Whether it is a father who abandons his sons, a lover who betrays you with another, or a brother who never seems to recognize the consequences of his actions – how do you find it in yourself to forgive? Who is hurt when you cannot / will not forgive? Who benefits most when you DO?

But we also deal with the issue of compassion and responsibility to those around us. Am I my brother’s keeper? Verghesse, I think, would answer “yes.” Whether it is a family member, an orphaned child, a neighbor in distress, even a stranger – each person deserves care and compassion.

The crisis that leads to the final resolution had me in tears. I wanted to read faster to find out what happens. I wanted to read more slowly to avoid what was coming. I had to finish; I was afraid to finish.

Some reviewers have said that the book was slow … not for me. I was engaged and enthralled from beginning to end. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time.

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UPDATE - Nov 6, 2011
I read this in April for my F2F book club # 1. Now two other book clubs are discussing it in November and December, so I decided to refresh my memory by listening to the audio. This review is confined to the audio experience.
Malhotra is pitch perfect in performing this book. He shows the right emotion or restraint depending on which character he is voicing. Shiva is maddeningly flat – this came across in the text but is even more evident in the audio – which adds to Marion’s frustration and anger. The only character’s voice that truly surprised me was that of Thomas Stone; I was expecting a more “cultured” and obviously British accent.
I typically listen to audio books during my daily commute. I had to laugh at myself, because despite knowing the outcome, I found myself riveted by the story, and at times driving “the long way” so that I could listen to more of the book before stopping for the day. It was the same reaction I have when listening to a particularly compelling story when I have NOT previously read it.

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Update: 26March2021
Nearly ten years later, I re-listened to the audio, and once again was transported and fully engaged in this marvelous novel. It made no difference that I knew what was coming. Verghese is an incredibly talented writer. show less

But it was only now, near the end, and far too late, that the pieces suddenly - dreadfully - clicked into place. Like a long Tetris piece slamming down, making a whole block of mystery blink and vanish. Only now did he realize what suddenly seemed so obvious: everyone who had suggested this book to him – every single one – was a middle-aged woman. This book…it was about the importance of family.

A wave of cold horror washed over him.

It would take months of porn and comic books to counteract this book’s effect. Months.

Cutting for Stone is the story of twin boys, Marion and Shiva Stone, born joined at the head in a mission hospital in Addis Ababa over fifty years ago. Their mother, an Indian nun, had kept her pregnancy secret and died during the births. Their father, a surgeon named Thomas Stone, abandons them at birth. The boys are adopted by two doctors, their new mother, the obstetrician who delivered them, and their father, a general practitioner who becomes a surgeon after their father, the only surgeon, immediately runs off.

The book is narrated by Marion, and describes growing up in the Ethiopia of the Emperor Haile Selassie. This is not a feel good book. Each of the characters are touched by multiple tragedies. I was heartbroken to read about show more the living conditions in Ethiopia. The author is a doctor himself, and there are some fairly long passages describing female genital mutilation, as well as some fairly detailed and gruesome surgeries.

I have not been able to stop thinking about this book. Although breathtakingly sad in some places, there is an underlying story of love and devotion. I'll admit to skimming through many of the medical procedure sections. As long as I knew what the disease was I didn't need to know that much about the surgery. I don't think everyone will love this book but I believe it is one of the most powerful books that I have ever read. show less

Cutting with Stone is a superbly written, beautifully narrated story of the lives of Marion and Shiva Stone, born identical conjoined twins in a hospital in Ethopia; they were separated at birth. Their mother, who died giving birth, was an Indian Carmelite nun who worked as a surgical nurse at the hospital where they were born. Their father, an Indian born Englishman, Thomas Stone, was the hospital's only surgeon who botched the C-section he was called to perform because the obstetrician was out of town. Dad disappears hours after the birth, unable to deal with a pregnancy he claimed to know nothing about and the death of his beloved Sister Mary Joseph Praise.

The orphaned twins were adopted and raised by two doctors at the hospital, show more Hema (the obstetrician) and Ghosh (the internist turned surgeon). There was an entire staff of surrogate parents to help in raising the boys. Medicine and its practice, including surgery was normal dinner conversation in the household. It was small wonder both grew to become doctors.

We are involved in the coups and political unrest in Ethiopia during the second half of the 20th century including the arrest and imprisonment of Ghosh, and the twins' later dealings with a rogue army bandit who threatens to kill them; we watch as the humble hospital in Addis Ababa continues to care for a diverse group of patrons, from the emperor's family to the poorest of the poor, with little funding and often crudely fashioned homemade instruments. We are given broad but specific (and sometimes gory) details of medical procedures in language the layman can understand, even though the amount of detail sometimes slows down the story. We watch as the boys mature, learn to dance, quote Shakespeare, and learn the art as well as the science of medicine from their parents. We see one of them fall hopelessly in love and then see one betray the other.

When Marion leaves to go to America, we are made brutally aware of the differences in medical practice in the two countries. It's not that the two countries have doctors of different abilities making the difference, rather it is the difference in resources and expectations that is vibrantly portrayed. Marion's residency in surgery at a hospital in New York eventually brings him face to face with his biological father and ultimately leads to history making and life changing experiences for all the family.

This book is long. It is 18 discs on audio (almost 24 hours of extremely well narrated story read by Sunil Malhotra) and 688 pages in print. It is difficult to do it justice in a review because, although written as a fictional narrative memoir, it is a novel with a spectacular ending that deserves not to be spoiled.

It is a story that is engrossing, exciting, appealing, easy to read and extremely difficult to put down. It is also one that I will want to read again and again. In both its print and its audio versions it is a story not soon to be forgotten. It is simply one of the best books I've ever read. show less

When this book originally came out I got the hardback out of the library queue, and didn't make it more than 50 pages in. I found it slow, and knew I would never be able to finish it before it was due.
I have since found the used paperback at my local Rotary Book Sale, and grabbed it. Now, I finally picked it up for the instagram #readtheworld21 challenge for East Africa.

I finished in 10 days. I flew through this book.

This isn't exactly a multigenerational family saga, it is about parents and children, and a small Ethiopian hospital largely funded by a church in Houston. It is about service, medicine, immigration, family (and what that means), and shame--all in the context of mid-20th-century Ethiopian history, culture, and society. show more There are Indian immigrants to Ethiopia, Ethiopians, and Eritreans. Ethiopian politics and Eritrean separatists come into play.

The author himself was born and raised in Ethiopia to Indian teachers. He had started medical school when the Emperor was desposed, and he came with his family to the US. He then attended medical school in India before returning to the US.

Just like Verghese, one of the characters in this book comes to the US for residency, and discovers that there are different tracks for foreign and American medical school graduates. The American graduates get the top spots and the top hospitals, the foreign graduates get shuffled around in struggling hospitals and may spend years trying to do a 5-year residency due to closures etc. And then, if they do finish, as often as not they will end up in rural out-of-the-way places where Americans won't go, but they themselves are happy to. Verghese has a lot to say about the American hospital system, and I really want to read his memoir to hear more.

Unlike Verghese, his character Marion does return home to Ethiopia, a fully qualified doctor, to work at the same hospital he grew up on the grounds of.

This novel has it all--family, love, hate, war, immigration, created family, school, loyalty, abandonment, and more. It is excellent. show less

"Cutting for Stone" is one of those novels whose size and reputation could easily intimidate its prospective readers. It comes in at almost 550 pages, after all, and most of the story takes place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, of all places. Its main characters are Ethiopian, Eritrean, Indian, British, or some mix of those nationalities and, even when the action moves to New York City, it is to a part of the city few Americans know anything about. The novel is part history lesson, part love story; it is both a modern novel and a reminder of the kind of thing Charles Dickens wrote on his best days; it is a science lesson and a travelogue. Bottom line: This is a very special novel, a reading experience everyone should at least consider having. show more Pick up this book; flip through it; read a few pages to see if it is something for you. If not, put it aside and try it again in a few months. Maybe you will get lucky the second time around.

When Sister Mary Joseph Praise gives birth to twin boys, no one is more surprised than the people trying to save her life - even Dr. Thomas Stone, the man suspected of being the father of the babies cannot believe what he is seeing. Stone feels such shock and dismay at his failure to save the nun that he walks out of the lives of his sons even as they are struggling to draw their first breaths.

Right up to the moment of her tragic death, Sister Mary Joseph Praise and Dr. Stone have been integral parts of the Missing Hospital community (called "Missing" only because native speakers have difficulty pronouncing the word "Mission"). Now, Hema, the mission's obstetrician, decides that she needs to devote herself to raising the twins, and Ghosh, the only other doctor, has to transform himself into a confident surgeon. Marion and Shiva Stone will grow into young men surrounded by loving and supportive people but, to say the least, they live in interesting times.

The boys will prove to be good students and, with the encouragement of Hema and Ghosh, both develop the interest in medicine that will define their lives. What better place can there be than Missing Hospital for would-be medical doctors to gain countless hours of hands-on experience other medical students can only dream about.? Unfortunately, politics, in the form of military coups and Eritrean separatist rebels, will have tragic consequences for some of those closest to Marion and Shiva, even to the point that Marion is forced to leave Missing Hospital for work in a New York ghetto hospital. But that is far from the end of Marion and Shiva Stone's story.

Readers will be totally immersed in the world and characters Abraham Verghese has created in "Cutting for Stone," and will find that Marion and Shiva Stone soon become believable characters despite their rather mythical entry into the world. Their relationship suffers over the years but, despite everything that happens between them, the pair shares the kind of bond only experienced by identical twins. They are so close, in fact, that Marion often feels they should be called MarionShiva rather than by their individual names. The reader will also come to love most of the supporting cast, despite the fatal flaws exhibited by a few of them, with which Verghese surrounds the Stone brothers.

I do have one warning about "Cutting for Stone" (and I say this with a smile): Keep in mind that Abraham Verghese is a doctor and that he uses surgical detail and medical condition descriptions to add authenticity and passion to his prose. This is not a book to be read during lunch or dinner by anyone with a "weak stomach." Those who have read the book will know what I mean; those who have not should consider themselves warned.

Rated at: 5.0 show less

My tears flowed uncontrollably when Shiva died. Shiva is usually narrated and seen from the perspective of Marion but you know he would have deemed his death worthy if his brother lived. He is a very interesting character, and I wish Verghese had given him more airtime. In contrast, the main character, Marion, seemed ordinary and even petty. He couldn't let go of his brother's betrayal and he admitted honestly that if he were in Shiva's shoes, he may not have donated half his liver. It is when we finished the story that we understand what Marion said in the story's beginning - that it is only with the telling of the story that his rift with Shiva can be healed. It is his redemption.