Lots of detailed medical procedures.
Conjoined twins, Shiva and Marion, are born to Sister Mary Joseph Praise at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa Ethiopia in 1954. The father, Thomas Stone, a surgeon at the hospital disappears after Sister Mary Joseph dies during the birth. The boys grow up at the hospital under the care of two doctors, who have successfully separated the boys, amid the political turmoil of Ethiopia, eventually becoming renowned doctors in their own fields.
“Tell us please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?”…. I met his gaze and I did not blink. “Words of comfort,” I said to my father.”
“A rich man’s faults are covered with money, but a surgeon’s faults are covered with earth.”
“Marion, remember the Eleventh Commandment,” he said. “Thou shall not operate on the day of a patient’s death.”
“My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they’ll leave in people’s hearts. They realize that no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.”
Quotes from the book
- Kirkus: A bold but flawed debut novel.
- The Common: “Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese’s debut novel, is nothing less than an epic in prose. The long narrative, setting, characters, conflicts, and quotations that read as invocations all set out to prove this.”
Awards: 2010 Nominee PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award; 2010 Winner Indies Choice Book Award for Adult Fiction ; 2010 Nominee Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction; 2009 Shortlist Wellcome Book Prize
Other edition: Penguin UK
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