Reviews
"A winner. . . . Filled with mystical scenes and deeply felt characters. . . . Verghese is something of a magician as a novelist." -USA Today "A masterpiece. . . . Not a word is wasted in this larger-than-life saga. . . . Verghese expertly weaves the threads of numerous story lines into one cohesive opus. The writing is graceful, the characters compassionate and the story full of nuggets of wisdom." -San Francisco Chronicle "Lush and exotic. . . . The kind [of novel] Richard Russo or Cormac McCarthy might write. . . . Shows how history and landscape and accidents of birth conspire to create the story of a single life. . . . Verghese creates this story so lovingly that it is actually possible to live within it for the brief time one spends with this book. You may never leave the chair." -Los Angeles Times "Vivid. . . .Cutting for Stoneshines." -The Washington Post Book World "Absorbing, exhilarating. . . . If you're hungry for an epic . . . open the covers ofCutting for Stone, [then] don't expect to do much else." -The Seattle Times "Wildly imaginative. . . . Verghese has the rare gift of showing his characters in different lights as the story evolves, from tragedy to comedy to melodrama, with an ending that is part Dickens, partGrey's Anatomy. The novel works as a family saga, but it is also something more, a lovely ode to the medical profession." -Entertainment Weekly "Engrossing. . . . Endearing. . . . A passionate, vivid, and informative novel." -The Boston Globe "Here is an extraordinary imagination, artfully shaped and forcefully developed, wholly given in service to a human story that is deeply moving, utterly gripping, and, indeed, unforgettable. . . . As noble and dramatic as that ancient practice-medicine-that lies at the heart of this magnificent novel." -John Burnham Schwartz "Grand enough for the movies. . . . Fascinating." -Dallas Morning News "Stupendous. . . . An epic romance, surgery meets history. Beautiful and deeply affecting." -Simon Schama,Financial Times "Verghese plays straight to the heart in his first novel, which will keep you in its thrall." -People "A marvel of a first novel. Verghese's generosity of spirit is beautifully embodied in this gripping family saga that brings mid-century Ethiopia to vivid life. The practice of medicine is like a spiritual calling in this book, and the unforgettable people at its center bring passion and nobility-not to mention humor and humility-to the ancient art, while living an unforgettable story of love and betrayal and forgiveness. It's wonderful." -Ann Packer "Like Chekhov, Verghese is a doctor and is as authoritative about the workings of the human heart as he is of the human body. . . . If comparisons with another writer have to be made, its blend of intensely realized detail, adventure, myth, wit, drama and poetry reminded me of Shakespeare." -Richard Eyre,The Sunday Telegraph(UK) "Compelling. . . . Readers will put this novel down at book's end knowing that it will stick with them for a long time to come." -St. Louis Post-Dispatch "The novel is full of compassion and wise vision. . . . I feel I changed forever after reading this book, as if an entire universe had been illuminated for me. It's an astonishing accomplishment to make such a foreign world famil, ONE OF THE ATLANTIC' S 15 BOOKS YOU WON'T REGRET RE-READING "A winner. . . . Filled with mystical scenes and deeply felt characters. . . . Verghese is something of a magician as a novelist." -- USA Today "A masterpiece. . . . Not a word is wasted in this larger-than-life saga. . . . Verghese expertly weaves the threads of numerous story lines into one cohesive opus. The writing is graceful, the characters compassionate and the story full of nuggets of wisdom." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Lush and exotic. . . . The kind [of novel] Richard Russo or Cormac McCarthy might write. . . . Shows how history and landscape and accidents of birth conspire to create the story of a single life. . . . Verghese creates this story so lovingly that it is actually possible to live within it for the brief time one spends with this book. You may never leave the chair." -- Los Angeles Times "Vivid. . . . Cutting for Stone shines." -- The Washington Post Book World "Absorbing, exhilarating. . . . If you're hungry for an epic . . . open the covers of Cutting for Stone , [then] don't expect to do much else." -- The Seattle Times "Wildly imaginative. . . . Verghese has the rare gift of showing his characters in different lights as the story evolves, from tragedy to comedy to melodrama, with an ending that is part Dickens, part Grey's Anatomy . The novel works as a family saga, but it is also something more, a lovely ode to the medical profession." -- Entertainment Weekly "Compelling. . . . Readers will put this novel down at book's end knowing that it will stick with them for a long time to come." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch "The novel is full of compassion and wise vision. . . . I feel I changed forever after reading this book, as if an entire universe had been illuminated for me. It's an astonishing accomplishment to make such a foreign world familiar to a reader by the book's end." --Sandra Cisneros, San Antonio Express-News "Tremendous. . . . Vivid and thrilling. . . . I feel lucky to have gotten to read it." --Atul Gawande "The first novel from physician Verghese displays the virtues so evident in his bestselling and much-lauded memoirs. He has a knack for well-structured scenes, a passion for medicine and a gift for communicating that passion." -- Cleveland Plain-Dealer "Fantastic. . . . Written with a lyrical flair, told through a compassionate first-person point of view, and rich with medical insight and information, [ Cutting for Stone ] makes for a memorable read." -- Houston Chronicle "Vastly entertaining and enlightening." --Tracy Kidder, “A winner. . . . Filled with mystical scenes and deeply felt characters. . . . Verghese is something of a magician as a novelist.� - USA Today “A masterpiece. . . . Not a word is wasted in this larger-than-life saga. . . . Verghese expertly weaves the threads of numerous story lines into one cohesive opus. The writing is graceful, the characters compassionate and the story full of nuggets of wisdom.� - San Francisco Chronicle “Lush and exotic. . . . The kind [of novel] Richard Russo or Cormac McCarthy might write. . . . Shows how history and landscape and accidents of birth conspire to create the story of a single life. . . . Verghese creates this story so lovingly that it is actually possible to live within it for the brief time one spends with this book. You may never leave the chair.� - Los Angeles Times “Vivid. . . . Cutting for Stone shines.� - The Washington Post Book World “Absorbing, exhilarating. . . . If you’re hungry for an epic . . . open the covers of Cutting for Stone , [then] don’t expect to do much else.� - The Seattle Times “Wildly imaginative. . . . Verghese has the rare gift of showing his characters in different lights as the story evolves, from tragedy to comedy to melodrama, with an ending that is part Dickens, part Grey’s Anatomy . The novel works as a family saga, but it is also something more, a lovely ode to the medical profession.� - Entertainment Weekly “Engrossing. . . . Endearing. . . . A passionate, vivid, and informative novel.� - The Boston Globe “Here is an extraordinary imagination, artfully shaped and forcefully developed, wholly given in service to a human story that is deeply moving, utterly gripping, and, indeed, unforgettable. . . . As noble and dramatic as that ancient practice-medicine-that lies at the heart of this magnificent novel.� -John Burnham Schwartz “Grand enough for the movies. . . . Fascinating.� - Dallas Morning News “Stupendous. . . . An epic romance, surgery meets history. Beautiful and deeply affecting.� -Simon Schama, Financial Times “Verghese plays straight to the heart in his first novel, which will keep you in its thrall.� - People “A marvel of a first novel. Verghese’s generosity of spirit is beautifully embodied in this gripping family saga that brings mid-century Ethiopia to vivid life. The practice of medicine is like a spiritual calling in this book, and the unforgettable people at its center bring passion and nobility-not to mention humor and humility-to the ancient art, while living an unforgettable story of love and betrayal and forgiveness. It’s wonderful.� -Ann Packer “Like Chekhov, Verghese is a doctor and is as authoritative about the workings of the human heart as he is of the human body. . . . If comparisons with another writer have to be made, its blend of intensely realized detail, adventure, myth, wit, drama and poetry reminded me of Shakespeare.� -Richard Eyre, The Sunday Telegraph (UK) “Compelling. . . . Readers will put this novel down at book’s end knowing that it will stick with them for a long time to come.� - St. Louis Post-Dispatch “The novel is full of compassion and wise vision. . . . I feel I changed forever after reading this book, as if an entire universe had been illuminated for me. It’s an astonishing accomplishment to make such a foreign world familiar to a reader by the book’s end.� -Sa, "A winner. . . . Filled with mystical scenes and deeply felt characters. . . . Verghese is something of a magician as a novelist." -- USA Today "A masterpiece. . . . Not a word is wasted in this larger-than-life saga. . . . Verghese expertly weaves the threads of numerous story lines into one cohesive opus. The writing is graceful, the characters compassionate and the story full of nuggets of wisdom." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Lush and exotic. . . . The kind [of novel] Richard Russo or Cormac McCarthy might write. . . . Shows how history and landscape and accidents of birth conspire to create the story of a single life. . . . Verghese creates this story so lovingly that it is actually possible to live within it for the brief time one spends with this book. You may never leave the chair." -- Los Angeles Times "Vivid. . . . Cutting for Stone shines." -- The Washington Post Book World "Absorbing, exhilarating. . . . If you're hungry for an epic . . . open the covers of Cutting for Stone , [then] don't expect to do much else." -- The Seattle Times "Wildly imaginative. . . . Verghese has the rare gift of showing his characters in different lights as the story evolves, from tragedy to comedy to melodrama, with an ending that is part Dickens, part Grey's Anatomy . The novel works as a family saga, but it is also something more, a lovely ode to the medical profession." -- Entertainment Weekly "Compelling. . . . Readers will put this novel down at book's end knowing that it will stick with them for a long time to come." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch "The novel is full of compassion and wise vision. . . . I feel I changed forever after reading this book, as if an entire universe had been illuminated for me. It's an astonishing accomplishment to make such a foreign world familiar to a reader by the book's end." --Sandra Cisneros, San Antonio Express-News "Tremendous. . . . Vivid and thrilling. . . . I feel lucky to have gotten to read it." --Atul Gawande "The first novel from physician Verghese displays the virtues so evident in his bestselling and much-lauded memoirs. He has a knack for well-structured scenes, a passion for medicine and a gift for communicating that passion." -- Cleveland Plain-Dealer "Fantastic. . . . Written with a lyrical flair, told through a compassionate first-person point of view, and rich with medical insight and information, [ Cutting for Stone ] makes for a memorable read." -- Houston Chronicle "Vastly entertaining and enlightening." --Tracy Kidder, "Abraham Verghese is a doctor, an accomplished memoirist and, as he proves inCutting for Stone,something of a magician as a novelist. This sprawling, 50-year epic begins with a touch of alchemy: the birth of conjoined twins to an Indian nun in an Ethiopian hospital in 1954. The likely father, a British surgeon, flees upon the mother's death, and the (now separated) baby boys are adopted by a loving Indian couple who run the hospital. Filled with mystical scenes and deeply felt charactersand opening a fascinating window onto the Third WorldCutting for Stoneis an underdog and a winner. Shades ofSlumdog Millionaire." Jocelyn McClurg,USA Today "A novel set in Africa bears a heavy burden. The author must bring the continent home to help the reader sit in a chair and imagine vast, ancient, sorrowful, beautiful Africa. In the last decade I've read books narrated by characters homesick for Africa; books by or about child soldiers; books about politics; books full of splintering history.Cutting for Stoneis the first straightforward novel set in and largely about Africa that I've read in a good long timethe kind Richard Russo or Cormac McCarthy might write, the kind that shows how history and landscape and accidents of birth and death conspire to create the story of a single life. Perhaps it is because the narrator is a doctor that you know there will be pain, healing, distance, perspective and a phoenix rising from the ashes of human error. Marion Stone reconstructs his half-century with a child's wonder . . . Verghese knows that beauty is the best way to draw us in . . . The landscape and the characters who live and work [at Missing Hospital] create something greater than a community, more like an organism. The intimacy of the twins . . . the ghostly purity of their mother and the daily rhythms of the hospital create an inhabitable, safe place, on and off the page. In lesser hands, melodrama would be irresistible . . . but Verghese has created characters with integrity that will not be shattered by any event. . . . Verghese makes the point in his gentle way that violence begets violence; that fanaticism is born from pain. . . .Cutting for Stoneowes its goodness to something greater than plot. It would not be possible to give away the story by simply telling you what happens. Verghese creates this story so lovingly that it is actually possible to live within it for the brief time one spends with this book. You may never leave the chair. . . Lush and exotic . . . richly written." Susan Salter Reynolds,Los Angeles Times "Any doubts you might harbor about a 534-page first novel by a physician in his 50s will be allayed in the first few pages of this marvelous book. Abraham Verghese has written two graceful memoirs, butCutting for Stone, his wildly imaginative fictional debut, is looser, bigger, even better. The narrative begins as a nun of staff at a charity hospital in Ethiopia dies giving birth to twin boys. No one on staff had known she was pregnant, least of all her surgeon lover, who promptly decamps. Just when you think you're holding a grim epic of abandonment, Verghese changes keys, launching a buoyant tale of family happiness. [The] newborns are adopted by Hema, the hospital's gynecologist, and her physician husband Ghosh. Introduced as a cheerful buffoon, Ghosh emerges as Verghese's most achingly soulful creation, man as wise as he is tender. Verghese has the rare gift of showing his characters in different lights as the story evolves, from tragedy to comedy to melodrama, with an ending that is part Dickens, partGrey's Anatomy.The novel works as a family saga, but it is also something more, a lovely ode to the medical profession. Verghese can write ab
