Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Read for: Book Club, Global Reading Challenge – Africa

Marion Stone, a siamese twin, was the son of an Indian nun and an English surgeon at a hospital in Ethiopia.  His mother died in childbirth and his father got scared and took off so Marion and his brother were raised by two Indian doctors who also worked at the hospital.  The story covers a fifty year span and a lot of stuff happens.  I can’t really say much more about the story without spoilers.  The story is about the relationship between the twins, the political history of Ethiopia and medicine.

The book started out a little slow.  It’s a long book and the first 100 or so pages could have been condensed a lot.   That’s about how long it took for the twins to be born but after that the book just took off and didn’t stop.  I loved the writing style in this book.  There were quite a few stories to be told and some flashbacks were necessary but instead of having the book jump all over the place like some do, Verghese just put the flashback in when it was pertinent and didn’t use it as a device to try and build suspense.  (I hate it when I’m reading a story and just when I start to get involved with the characters, the author drops the reader into another story. )

I also really liked reading about Ethiopia and the life they lived there.  I’ve always had a certain vision of Ethiopia and reading this book made me realize how wrong I’ve been.  It was also very interesting to read the experience of Marion when he first came to North America.  I’ve read lots of books about people coming to America but the way Verghese described it seemed so real.

I also liked the story.  It took an unexpected turn but it worked.  There was a lot of technical language (at least to me) but it never seemed overwhelming and it never took away from the story.  I look forward to reading more from Verghese.