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Cutting for Stone

Abraham Verghese

Start date: January 1, 2022

Finish date: January 31, 2022

Discussion: Country and Territories

Why we're reading this: Countries/Territories: Ethiopia

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
[close] Countries/Territories: Ethiopia

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

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What Members Thought

Apr 28, 2018 J. Schlenker rated it it was amazing

This book was hard for me to get into at first, but once I did, I hung on most every word. It will be one long in my memory.

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Apr 03, 2020 Cam rated it liked it

This book was good... but it wasn’t all hyped up awesome like i thought it would be. The author was very long winded in parts of the book but I liked the story enough to not throw it in my DNF pile.

The story is told by the protagonist, Marion Stone. He and his conjoined twin Shiva are born at Mission hostipal in 1954. Their mother, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, an Indian Carmelite nun, dies during childbirth. Their father, Thomas Stone, the English surgeon of Missing, abandons them and disappears. This book was good... but it wasn’t all hyped up awesome like i thought it would be. The author was very long winded in parts of the book but I liked the story enough to not throw it in my DNF pile.

The story is told by the protagonist, Marion Stone. He and his conjoined twin Shiva are born at Mission hostipal in 1954. Their mother, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, an Indian Carmelite nun, dies during childbirth. Their father, Thomas Stone, the English surgeon of Missing, abandons them and disappears. Orphaned at birth, the pair grow up in the household of two physicians of Missing.

Over time, though, individual differences begin to become pronounced. When entering puberty their relationship to Genet, the daughter of Rosina, a domestic help, finally tears them apart. Marion is in love with Genet and intends to marry her, but it is Shiva who, interested in sexual pursuits, becomes her first lover. Marion feels betrayed. Rosina forces Genet to submit to female genital mutilation and commits suicide shortly thereafter. Genet will later join the Eritrean liberation movement. While Marion goes to medical school, his brother stays at Missing. Focused on the repair of birth-related fistulas, he takes up his surgical training with Hema eschewing a formal medical education. On his death bed, Ghosh has three wishes for Marion - to get the best medical education, to find Stone, and to forgive his brother.

When Genet and her comrades hijack an Ethiopian Airlines airplane in 1979, Marion is on a list of her connections. To avoid arrest he flees the country overnight to Kenya. He goes to New York City where he finds a position at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, a hospital in the Bronx. There, he enters a surgical residency. One day, assisting his senior in a complicated trauma operation, an unknown surgeon enters looking them over the shoulder. It is Thomas Stone, by now a well-renowned liver surgeon from Boston. Marion's encounter with his biological father redirects his life leading to a painful reconciliation and reunion with his estranged brother. ...more

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Jul 23, 2011 Heather rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book took me a long time. The prose was good, but the subject matter was difficult to slog through at times for me and some of the highly medical (ie; grisly) writing was hard for me to stomach. It was effective in that I felt very fortunate to have the life I have. Nevertheless, I remained mildly interested in the characters, but I wasn't pulled through it like I wanted to be. I finished for the sake of finishing it and it left me feeling unsettled in the end. ...more

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