The Blog

Although the cover copy on Abraham Verghese’s lush novel, Cutting for Stone, implies that the story is about twin brothers, it’s really not. Instead, it’s an intense, provocative look at one of those brothers and his struggle to find his place in the world.

Granted, the twins begin life together in not the best of circumstances. Their mother, a young Indian nun working in Ethiopia, dies in the operating room soon after they’re born. Their father, the revered English surgeon Thomas Stone, unaware of his assistant’s pregnancy and devastated by her death, flees Ethiopia the same day. The twins are taken in and reared by Hema, the gynecologist/obstetrician who saves their lives during their difficult birth.

As youngsters, the brothers share a deep intimacy, but each also has a keen individuality. Marion, the narrator of the story, has a questioning nature, while Shiva seems to always know what he wants. I say “seems” to know because as readers, we don’t have access to his thoughts. We only have access to Marion’s thoughts, which pushes him to the center of the story. Fortunately, he is complex enough to illuminate the many characters and events spinning around him. Verghese foreshadows this role when Marion acts as interpreter for Shiva, who as a child decides not to talk for an extended period of time.

As the years go by, Shiva is always about three steps ahead, driven by a certainty that eludes Marion. When a girl with a fistula is brought to the hospital where Hema works, Shiva decides immediately that he will become a surgeon who specializes in fistula repair, while Marion’s road to becoming a surgeon includes more twists and turns. Although Marion loves Genet, the daughter of the boys’ nanny, he is shy about expressing that love. Shiva, on the other hand, steps boldly into a physical relationship with Genet, causing dire consequences for her and a rift between the brothers that lasts for years. Ironically, Marion’s involvement with Genet, who becomes an Eritrean rebel, forces him to leave Ethiopia and finish his surgical training at an underfunded hospital in New York City, where eventually his life in Ethiopia comes back to haunt him.

Throughout his journey, Marion embraces people and events with an openness that endeared him to me. In the same way, Verghese embraces the culture of Ethiopia on the brink of revolution with acceptance and detail that drew me in, despite my usual preference for stories set in the United States. Cutting for Stone is alive with descriptions of cities and characters and medical procedures that testify to Verghese’s experience as a physician. It’s a sprawling novel covering several decades and including many people, both historical and fictional, but always at the heart of it is Marion.

I suppose you could say it’s a coming-of-age story, but the circumstances of Marion’s life have always caused him to view the world with a degree of maturity. I’d say it’s an adventure story, filled with courage and love, about the greatest adventure of all—life.

Don’t miss reading Cutting for Stone before the movie version, directed by Academy Award-winner Susanne Beir, is released. The novel is too good to bypass.