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My Own Country: A Doctor's Story

4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 · rating details · 3,374 ratings · 441 reviews

Nestled in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, the town of Johnson City had always seemed exempt from the anxieties of modern American life. But when the local hospital treated its first AIDS patient, a crisis that had once seemed an “urban problem” had arrived in the town to stay.

Working in Johnson City was Abraham Verghese, a young Indian doctor specializing in i...more

Paperback, 448 pages

Published April 25th 1995 by Vintage (first published 1994)

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Jun 20, 2008 Lori rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008

Am I a book snob?

Because I'm finding that as I read a book, like this one, I keep asking myself why someone would waste so many words to say, essentially, nothing that sheds light on the story.

Why do I need to know every time the author got in his car to go somewhere, that he turned right on such and such street, then left onto that highway, and then there was a bend in the road...

For real?

I understand that he was trying to give the reader a sense of 'His Country,' but it became excessive. He o...more Am I a book snob?

Because I'm finding that as I read a book, like this one, I keep asking myself why someone would waste so many words to say, essentially, nothing that sheds light on the story.

Why do I need to know every time the author got in his car to go somewhere, that he turned right on such and such street, then left onto that highway, and then there was a bend in the road...

For real?

I understand that he was trying to give the reader a sense of 'His Country,' but it became excessive. He often went on long tangents to describe things, like the intricacies of a tobacco business that, in the end, lent nothing to the story. I kept feeling like I was traveling down a road, fully expecting it to go somewhere, only to find that I had to mentally back myself out of a dead end and re-orient myself to the story.

And oh, my with the naming of every bit of flora and fauna!

This is not to say the book was completely uninteresting. Many parts were enjoyable. The book is best in its opening pages when the reader is brought right into a mysterious medical case. The stories he tells of his work with AIDS patients, and about the patients themselves are often interesting and sometimes even insightful.

But by the middle of the book, the story still isn't turning. The author is still introducing the reader to new patients. You begin to sense that the book is going to carry on the same way until the end: he is going to keep stringing stories of patients together, breaking the monotony by throwing in passages about the scenery in rural Tennessee or brief, predictable updates on his failing marriage (which never seem to bring him to much personal reflection or action.)

The strength of the book is that it gives people with AIDS faces, stories, lives. I appreciated that, and found most of their stories at least interesting.

I give it two stars because I really liked it in the beginning, waited for the story to 'come around' in the middle, and read the end of it only because I didn't want to leave another book unfinished.(less)

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Aug 20, 2012 Rachael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow - a fascinating account of one doctor's experience during ground-zero of the AIDS epidemic. Incredibly well-written and personal, Verghese paints a captivating picture of the utter fear, devastation, and hope in the early days of AIDS.

A specialist in infectious diseases, Verghese did not anticipate that his life in rural Johnson City, Tennessee would soon be consumed by AIDS. The disease was thought to be a problem of the big cities on the coasts. And of the gay community, which was nearly...more Wow - a fascinating account of one doctor's experience during ground-zero of the AIDS epidemic. Incredibly well-written and personal, Verghese paints a captivating picture of the utter fear, devastation, and hope in the early days of AIDS.

A specialist in infectious diseases, Verghese did not anticipate that his life in rural Johnson City, Tennessee would soon be consumed by AIDS. The disease was thought to be a problem of the big cities on the coasts. And of the gay community, which was nearly invisible in Johnson City. At a time of great scientific investment and medical advances, it was also believed that a cure was right around the corner.

When HIV/AIDS patients began trickling into Verghese's practice, very little was known about the disease and treatment was essentially nonexistent. His accounts of watching patients deteriorate and eventually succumb to the disease were heartbreaking; a doctor with no cure.

As the de facto AIDS expert of Johnson City, Verghese’s work soon became all consuming. He quickly realized that this disease required more than the typical impersonal clinical experience. He made a major effort to get to know his patients, to hear their stories. He developed friendships with some and made house calls. He advocated for their participation in Duke’s first AZT studies. And he spent significant amounts of time engaging the public about AIDS prevention. All this came at a great personal toll. This was not the life his wife signed up for and towards the end of the book, his marriage began unraveling.

An immigrant of Indian descent from Ethiopia, Verghese’s integration and separation from the community at large was also very interesting. Surprisingly few incidents of racism occurred, but he still often felt like an outsider.

Along the way, it was interesting to witness Verghese struggle with various issues. Confronting homophobia (his own and that of the community), struggling with end-of-life care, and (rather unsuccessfully) attempting a work-life balance.

I don’t throw this word around easily, but Verghese is a hero. At a time when the medical community didn’t know how HIV was spread (or even what it was), Verghese dove in and provided intensely personal care. His drive to help his patients went above and beyond the call of duty. His work made a profound impact on the patients and their families. I look forward to reading more from him.

(less)

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Apr 10, 2013 Nvrobinson rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read the book because Cutting for Stone, and The Tennis Partner were so interesting and beautifully written that I knew I would appreciate whatever topic Varghese chose; his images are created by the music of his language. An example is "...a torrent of speech would commence, a veritable word salad that climbed up the drapes, bounced off the ceiling, and circled the bed." In the Tennis Partner, as words of wisdom he wrote, " Life, you live it forward, but you understand it backward."
The subje...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Colleen Clark rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, health-medicine

This was the first book of Verghese's I knew about but I read his novel "Cutting for Stone" first.

This one I gave to my daughter-in-law who is a nurse and works on HIV prevention at a clinic in Boston. I borrowed it from her recently and read it with great interest and pleasure. (I also bought myself a copy at my favorite local bookstore. I picked it up to check something about dates and saw that the copy was signed. I asked at my bookstore - in Cambridge MA , Verghese is at Stanford now - and t...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Medical memoir about an Indian doctor living in rural Tennessee in the 1980s in the dawn of the age of AIDS. Verghese was an infectious disease specialist focusing on AIDS. He basically lives there during the time when AIDS was first discovered, throughout the 1980s and ending his time there exactly as the 80's come to close, on New Year's Eve 1989.

Many topics are covered here: prejudices against those with AIDS back then (you'd think it would be worse in the rural south, but really much of the...more

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Aug 11, 2012 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't think I would have picked up this book about the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s if it hadn't been set in the area of the country where I grew up. I am very glad I did. Abraham Verghese writes with rare honesty and compassion. I don't think I've read anything like this that treats both gay people and Christians with sympathy. The book is also unusual in its positive treatment of rural Appalachia, whose people are most often caricatured and belittled.

Not only is the story of the AIDS patients...more

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Apr 21, 2012 Ron rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

The author of this book is an Indian doctor, working at a hospital in Johnson city, Tennessee, at the start of the AIDS epidemic. His account is of being the only infectious diseases physician in a rural community at a time when the first wave of HIV-positive gay men were returning to their hometowns from New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. His observations of the men and women who come to him for care, and the relationships that have grown between them, are insightful and vivid. Though he...more

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Apr 09, 2012 Sharon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Abraham Verghese is a medical doctor of infectious diseases. This book describes the journey that led him to that specialty in his career, after the young Indian doctor decided to take up practice in the town of Johnson City, nestled in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. After the hospital treated its first AIDS patient, Dr. Verghese became the local expert, soon treating a great number of male and female patients who came from the surrounding small towns. He tells us the stories of his patients...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Rae rated it 3 of 5 stars

Dr. Verghese earned four of my stars for his fictional Cutting for Stone, but I only offer three for this memoir. He tells of his years as a rural Tennessee internist, in the era of the discovery of HIV. Verghese shares many vignettes of the HIV patients he managed and the resistance and fear often encountered in the community.

The story is historically interesting, as HIV/AIDs is discovered in urban centers and migrates silently to small-town America. Certainly Verghese performed an enormous ser...more

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Feb 15, 2012 Ann Mcelligott rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Dr Abraham Verghese served a residency infectious diseases in Johnson City, Tennessee, in the mid to late 1980s. AIDS had become a frightening scourge in urban centers and was beginning to move back to the hometowns of those were infected. He was deeply devoted to his patients and, through them, became a empathic physician. He is now the Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University. He left his post in Tennessee and moved to Iowa where he entered the prestigious Iowa...more

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Jan 29, 2012 Colleen rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: those who like Verghese' writing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 18, 2011 Pat rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is about the early days of AIDS in a small city in eastern Tennessee for a young doctor born and brought up in an entirely different culture. It deals with his reactions, his patients, his life and the lives of all of the people touched by AIDS in that small city environment snuggled up against the Appalachians. I'll now be sure to put his other books on my reading list because he writes so well. His background is so unusual - Christian East Indian born and brought up in Ethiopia - and he a...more

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Apr 07, 2011 Carolinecarver rated it 4 of 5 stars

Verghese is amazing...great writer, albeit a little detail overloaded--sometimes you get the feeling he is practicing his writing. Be that as it may, he is clearly a caring doctor on the cusp of what will become the AIDS epidemic of our time. Takes place in Tennessee where the first cases of AIDS reach his rural community, and the sense of place is as real as the people he treats. Insightful, sympathetic and exhausting all at once.

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Jan 31, 2011 Lisa Christen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Another good book by the author of "Cutting For Stone." He can be a bit wordy, though, so being anxious to see what was going to happen, I skimmed sections.

This is about Verghese's experience being an Indian doctor in a small town in Tennessee when HIV began to hit the news in the mid-1980s. Remember that time? No one knew much about this horrible disease and so much was speculation and fear. Being in the hospital setting when it happened, Verghese, an Infectious disease physician, became the p...more

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Nov 08, 2010 Linda rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, medicine

If I could give it a 6 I would...stories and passion from the frontlines of the AIDs epidemic in areas that were unknown and uncovered, not the big cities, but the small towns where there was much less support and recognition...but then maybe not.

"I have lived for five years in a culture of disease, a small island in a sea of fear. I have seen many things there. I have seen how life speeds up and heightens in climates of extreme pain and emotion. It is hard to live in these circumstances, despit...more

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May 04, 2010 Shelah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone was one of the best books I read last year. I'm not sure if it was my very favorite, but it was in the top two or three, for sure.

Although Cutting for Stone was fiction, My Own Country is a memoir, focusing on the years when Verghese, born in Africa to Indian parents, is a young infectious diseases doctor in rural Eastern Tennessee, right at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. As one of the only physicians in the area willing and able to take care of the men...more Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone was one of the best books I read last year. I'm not sure if it was my very favorite, but it was in the top two or three, for sure.

Although Cutting for Stone was fiction, My Own Country is a memoir, focusing on the years when Verghese, born in Africa to Indian parents, is a young infectious diseases doctor in rural Eastern Tennessee, right at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. As one of the only physicians in the area willing and able to take care of the men and women suffering from the disease, Verghese becomes almost like part of their families as he nurses them to their deaths.

This may sound cheesy, but Abraham Verghese has a gift. As I read the Whitney books, I read a lot of good, solid books by good, solid writers. But when I read for my own pleasure, I tend to read mostly what others have recommended as the best of the best. As a general rule, the quality of the writing in the things I normally read is a degree higher than the quality of what I read in the month of March. Abraham Verghese's writing definitely falls on the highest end of my spectrum, even when that spectrum is comprised many of the good stuff. I know that lots of writers (and I'm sure Verghese would include himself in this group) become good by working hard and revising and thinking and putting in sweat equity. But there's just something about the way he writes that makes me want more. In fact, I just ordered his other memoir.

Another thing I thing I thought was interesting about My Own Country is the way that Verghese treats his relationship with his wife Rajani. During the years that the book takes place, he and Rajani go from being happily married to realizing that their marriage has problems. By the time the memoir was published, the couple was divorced. So I think it's interesting for him to write about some of the good years of their marriage (both of their sons are born during the Tennessee years) from the perspective of someone who is newly divorced. Although I don't think he shrinks from his role in the collapse of the marriage, he also doesn't portray Rajani as the "and she never complained" kind of self-sacrificing spouse that people like doctors and bishops are supposed to have. (less)

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Apr 24, 2010 Angela is currently reading it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

Although written with Verghese's customarily deep psychological insight, and sensitivity, this book also contains frank and graphic discussions of the medical and sexual issues pertaining to the spread and treatment of AIDS from the point of view of an African born South Asian American doctor working in a rural community hospital in the US in the early to mid eighties, when awareness of the virus was just beginning to enter American consciousness even in the medical community.
The sometimes visc...more

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Aug 02, 2009 Reid rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a fine book about the early days of the HIV epidemic, and how perplexed and conflicted many were as they came to terms with their own feelings and reactions to the disease and those who contracted it. However, it also is a book in the longstanding tradition of HIV books that are self-congratulatory, maudlin, and self-pitying. The irony of HIV has often been that, while pleading for it to be treated as just another disease in order to normalize those who suffer from it rather than margina...more

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Jan 31, 2010 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but somehow stumbled on this with an Amazon gift card burning a hole in my pocket. It's the autobiography of an infectious diseases doctor of foreign descent during the mid- 80s, when AIDS and HIV were first being understood. Dr. Verghese is working in an East Tennessee hospital when their first AIDS case comes to his hospital.

What's fascinating about this story is the intersection of experiences as an outsider: an Indian doctor in Tennessee, those with the HI...more

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Apr 15, 2011 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

I hope those who found this author's ambitious novel "Cutting for Stone" problematic might consider turning to this earlier and eloquent non-fiction work of his, a highly meaningful, moving, and compelling personal memoir and thus a very different reading experience. I would actually give this book four-and-a-half stars. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction, and deservedly so. On the cover, lines about the book written by Perri Klass in "The New York Times...more

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Feb 26, 2011 Shannon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

I read this book after reading "Cutting for Stone;" I wanted to know more about the author who had penned one of my favorite books and what his real life was like. What I found was an intriguing story of what it is like to be an infectious disease doctor treating patients for which there is no known cure. Verghese struggled with all sorts of questions: How do you help prepare your patients for the inevitable? How do you council them through the ostracism of friends and family? How do you change...more

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Aug 12, 2010 Linda Shostak rated it 5 of 5 stars

Okay - so my brother Greg recommended I read Abraham Verghese's "Cutting For Stone". Since Greg has excellent literary taste I looked up the book and recommended it to many of my friends. However, I was "afraid" to read it because I thought it might make me sad. So instead I decided to read his non-fiction account of treating AIDs in Tennessee during the 1980s, "My Own Country". Cause yeah that wouldn't be sad! My gracious friend Molly had a copy of the book which she lent to me. I just finished...more Okay - so my brother Greg recommended I read Abraham Verghese's "Cutting For Stone". Since Greg has excellent literary taste I looked up the book and recommended it to many of my friends. However, I was "afraid" to read it because I thought it might make me sad. So instead I decided to read his non-fiction account of treating AIDs in Tennessee during the 1980s, "My Own Country". Cause yeah that wouldn't be sad! My gracious friend Molly had a copy of the book which she lent to me. I just finished it and had to share it with you (because I have no life outside of books!).

It is an amazing book. Verghese took a sabbatical after his AIDs experience and attended the Iowa Writer's workshop. I suspect the emotional honesty and self-reflection in this book came about in part, from his experience there. He writes so openly about his journey from typical hetero ignorance of gay culture, the humbling experience of being a doctor who could offer no treatment to his patients, learning how to help patients die a good death and the strain on his marriage. And yet, gut wrenching as this all was, the bigger impression made on me was how Verghese, his patients and the medical staff grew stronger throughout the book.

Reading this was also a great refresher for me on how shamefully AIDs was handled by the government, the medical profession and society in general. Here in the US AIDs has a much lower profile now, infection rates have stabilized, infection routes and risks are better know and we can treat some aspects of the disease. Because of this I tend to forget the fear and hysteria of those early years. I think it is important to remember how big an impact denial and bigotry can have on our response to a crisis.

The book also reminded me of my experiences working on AIDs in the pharmaceutical industry. Back in the late 80's the little research firm I worked for got the contract on one of the first AIDs drugs. Most of our data entry staff were country girls from Nelson County, VA. They were poorly educated and extremely conservative. The data we entered on the drug contained information on the sexual habits of the AIDs patients. How many partners, what type of sex, how frequent the sex. This was being recorded in an attempt to determine infection rates and routes. I remember listening the entry staff express their disgust over this data and distaste for these patients. But as the study continued I heard their comments change. Although these patients were only anonymous numbers on a page, we all became caught up with their struggle. We followed their weight loss and gain, their battle with infections, their hospitalizations, and often their deaths. By the end of the study the entry staff were crying when the patients died. We all were. In the end our study failed, the drug had no effect on the AIDs virus. We were all so depressed that management held a company wide meeting to discuss the failure, and to remind us that other drugs were coming down the pipeline. AZT was approved not long after that.

So - read the book if you get a chance. It is great! And maybe now I will work up my emotional courage and tackle "Cutting For Stone".(less)

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Apr 16, 2010 Melisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book pretty much fits the bill for my absolute favorite type of reading: passionate people writing beautifully about whatever they care most about and the way in which they are transformed by that caring. Also I love a good medical memoir so I hit the jackpot with this one.

I looked for this book after reading Verghese's Cutting for Stone recently. That novel was brilliant and, as I didn't want it to end, I went looking for more of Verghese's writing. It would be hard for me to say which b...more

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Mar 30, 2009 Maggie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a memoir about 5 years in the life of an infectious diseases physician, who practices in a small town in Tennessee in the 1980s and sees the onset and rise of AIDS cases in the area.

Abraham Verghese is a very intelligent, human, thoughtful, compassionate, ethical, and passionate doctor ministering as the only infectious diseases expert to Johnson City, Tennessee and the VA hospital there. He is also a husband and father of two infant boys, which commands and demands its own priorities....more

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Oct 29, 2010 Q rated it 4 of 5 stars

this is a story of AidS in Eastern TN at the near beginning of the epidemic. its the story of a non-urban community, the patients and the young doctor that served them and who learned from them.

in one way it's period piece late 80's to early 90's. it's not new - the devastating effect of AiDs is known - and yet this book touched me deeply. The effect on Abraham Verghese's life trying to help his patients with limited resources at first and overcome his own ignorance and views and mtg. with the...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Josiah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobiography, health, history-ad-20th-century, nonfiction-american, philosophy-ethics

Dr. Abraham Verghese touches on his early years and medical school, but fills most of the pages with vignettes of his patients in rural Tennessee. Their tales trace the passage of HIV/AIDS from Africa to New York & San Francisco, spreading into the heartland of America as gay men returned home to spend their final days with family. The President, FDA, and CDC were still ignorant or skeptical of HIV (then known as ARC), and did little to provide blood testing and nothing to protect blood bank...more

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Apr 28, 2010 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: male-author

In this book, Abraham Verghese writes about treating AIDS patients as a doctor in rural Tennessee in the 1980s. Verghese was born and raised in Ethiopia to Indian parents, attended medical school in India, and completed his residency in Johnson City, Tennesee. He spent a few years in Boston, and then returned to Johnson City and worked in the hospital there, specializing in infectious diseases. By default, he became the HIV/AIDS specialist for Johnson City, and much of the surrounding rural area...more

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Sep 01, 2011 Betsy Lewis-moreno rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book took me back to the days when HIV was a sure death sentence and there was much fear and uncertainty about what caused it. After reading Cutting for Stone, I had read about Verghese and his work in Johnson City, TN, a small city in East Tennessee close to where I was born and put this book on my list. I wasn't disappointed. Much like the doctor in Cutting for Stone, Verghese is a compassionate man who is genuinely interested in his patients' lives and stories. I was immersed in his worl...more

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Jul 14, 2009 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars

A moving and compelling book about a doctor's experience of caring for HIV/AIDS patients in rural Appalachia during the first years of the epidemic. It's non-fiction but it reads like a novel because the author creates such vivid portraits of his patients, their individual life journeys and psychologies, and their suffering. It's a serious book and has tragic moments, but I wouldn't call it depressing. The author is honest and introspective about his own status as a traveler and an outsider (as...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Janelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

I picked this up after reading Cutting for Stone (twice) and seeing this TED Talk by Abraham Verghese: http://www.ted.com/talks/abraham_verg...

I was absolutely gripped by this memoir of Verghese's early years of medical training (which are recalled in the characters of Marion Stone and his New York colleagues) and the early years of the U.S. AIDS outbreak. I lived through those years myself, but as a young teenager with only a cursory awareness of "the plague." My initial contact with an infecte...more

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About Abraham Verghese

Abraham Verghese, MD, MACP, is Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine.

Born of Indian parents who were teachers in Ethiopia, he grew up near Addis Ababa and began his medical training there. When Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed, he completed his training at Madras Medical Co...more Abraham Verghese, MD, MACP, is Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine.

Born of Indian parents who were teachers in Ethiopia, he grew up near Addis Ababa and began his medical training there. When Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed, he completed his training at Madras Medical College and went to the United States for his residency as one of many foreign medical graduates. Like many others, he found only the less popular hospitals and communities open to him, an experience he described in one of his early New Yorker articles, The Cowpath to America.

From Johnson City, Tennessee, where he was a resident from 1980 to 1983, he did his fellowship at Boston University School of Medicine, working at Boston City Hospital for two years. It was here that he first saw the early signs of the HIV epidemic and later, when he returned to Johnson City as an assistant professor of medicine, he saw the second epidemic, rural AIDS, and his life took the turn for which he is most well known ? his caring for numerous AIDS patients in an era when little could be done and helping them through their early and painful deaths was often the most a physician could do.

His work with terminal patients and the insights he gained from the deep relationships he formed and the suffering he saw were intensely transformative; they became the basis for his first book, My Own Country : A Doctor's Story, written later during his years in El Paso, Texas. Such was his interest in writing that he decided to take some time away from medicine to study at the Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1991. Since then, his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Texas Monthly, Atlantic, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Granta, Forbes.com, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

Following Iowa, he became professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center in El Paso, Texas, where he lived for the next 11 years. In addition to writing his first book, which was one of five chosen as Best Book of the Year by Time magazine and later made into a Mira Nair movie, he also wrote a second best-selling book, The Tennis Partner : A Story of Friendship and Loss, about his friend and tennis partner?s struggle with addiction. This was a New York Times' Notable Book.(less)

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“I felt sorry that he had suffered so long in the hospital, sorry that even in his last minutes our mindless technology had so rudely interrupted his transition” — 2 people liked it

“I realized that I could have done more for him if I had been in his house. I would have pushed morphine--large doses. Morphine disconnects the head from the body, makes the isthmus of a neck vanish and diminishes the awareness of suffering. It is like a magic trick: the head on the pillow, at peace, while the chest toils away.” — 2 people liked it

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