Cutting for Stone

A Novel

By: Abraham Verghese

Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra

Length: 23 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of The Covenant of Water: A beautifully written, page-turning family saga of Ethiopia and America, doctors and patients, exile and home. • “Filled with mystical scenes and deeply felt characters.... Verghese is something of a magician as a novelist.” —USA Today

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.

Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.

This sweeping, emotionally riveting novel that "shows how history and landscape and accidents of birth conspire to create the story of a single life" (Los Angeles Times).

©2009 Abraham Verghese (P)2009 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Abraham Verghese is a doctor, an accomplished memoirist and, as he proves in Cutting 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 characters–and opening a fascinating window onto the Third World–Cutting for Stone is an underdog and a winner. Shades of Slumdog 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.... 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, but Cutting for Stone, his wildly imaginative fictional debut, is looser, bigger, even better.... The doctor in him sees the luminous beauty of the physician’s calling; the artist recognizes that there remain wounds no surgeon can men. ‘Where silk and steel fail, story must succeed,’ Marion muses. This one does.”–Jennifer Reese, Entertainment Weekly; Grade: A

Great Book

Loved the story and the reader
such an intelegent story teller, and a story starts very good, and constantely gets better.

Wonderful book

This is a beautiful book, fantastically written and read. It captivated me so much that i couldn't concentrate on any other reading. Thank you thank you.

EXCELLENT!!

Anyone interested in medicine or becoming a doctor or nurse, EMT or any other career in the medical field...THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU!!! Loved every minute of this book.

an epic story of post-coloniialism

If you could sum up Cutting for Stone in three words, what would they be?

Intergenerational consequences of empire

What did you like best about this story?

The moving prose, the grippingtt plot, the unravelraing of layered characters and the vicariouspglimpse of past worlds' exoticness made ordinary, but not mundane.

Have you listened to any of Sunil Malhotra’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but it is good. Not great on the women's roles.

If you could take any character from Cutting for Stone out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Goshe. Fun, funny, intelligent, and in the right moment he could share a worldview understandable, but not necessarily sympathetic to, Western sensibilities that would tell as much about the West as it does about post-colonial India and north Africa.
The characters, like the settings, are products of and unintended consequences of colonialism..

LOVED every beautifully written page...

Spell-binding, beautifully executed. Heart-wrenching and heart-warming, with sparks of great humor intertwined throughout the story. Perfect twists and turns, always another story behind a story, making for a great plot and interesting characters. Characters are richly and lovingly described, making them all so easy to care about. Loved the medical aspect as well. Also, very importantly, GREAT NARRATION. Without good narration, any story, even an excellent one, can be rendered frustrating and non-listenable (which unfortunately, I've run across a few times with my Audible purchases). Not so here. Great story, great narration, a winning combination!

Great historical fiction

I'm a big fan of historical fiction - you get a great story as well as some education. This title is a great addition to that genre. I had to start it twice... sometimes a book just doesn't grip me from the outset and I have to come back to it once I have time to really concentrate on the first hour and get invested. I could imagine that some people might find it a little slow - if you like 200 page mystery or thriller stories, this is probably not the book for you. Likewise, if you can't deal with a story that is not always moving chronologically forward you might want to think twice. The story is rich and interesting, but takes time to fully mature. Many times the author introduces uncertainty into the plot; the main character (and therefore the reader) doesn't have all the facts. Rest assured that all is answered in the fullness of time.

The book's characters are very authentic - slightly flawed, not always entirely likable - which makes the story so realistic that I had to check at one point and make sure it was fiction. While this story itself is invented, the historical background (both of Ethiopia and of medical science) was quite well researched. Without giving spoilers, the medical aspects deviate from real life at the end of the book, but I still learned a lot about medicine in the process. I had never heard anything on the history of Ethiopia and was glad to add that background to my knowledge-base, too.

A great story

Thoroughly enjoyed the narrator in this book. What vivid storytelling! Loved it so much bought the book (hardbound) for my Mom. The characters come alive with this narrator.

Intricately woven story

What made the experience of listening to Cutting for Stone the most enjoyable?

The narrator is the best voice actor I have ever heard. He switches from character to character, dialect to dialect in a way that is mind blowing. There must be more than 20 characters from 10 nationalities in this book!

What did you like best about this story?

The storyline and the characterization against the settings was profound

Which character – as performed by Sunil Malhotra – was your favorite?

Couldn't possibly pick just one!!!

Any additional comments?

I have recommended this book to many many people and they have all had positive reviews. This is my favorite book this decade! Grateful that it was also an audio book!

Totally engaging!

When I saw that this book was about the illegitimate children of a nun and a doctor, frankly I rolled my eyes. However, I was totally in love with these characters and followed the book with adoration! I highly recommend it!

A Truly Intense & Emotional Ride

This is the longest story I’ve listened to on Audible, but it was fairly easy to stay engaged. There were so many different points given to view the story from, and such a variety of character development, making it through each chapter felt like an emotional roller coaster. Many moments had me like “holy cow, didn’t see that coming!”

Although they reference it in the story a few times, I still don’t fully understand what ‘Cutting for Stone’ means. Seems to be a medical expression, but also has some double meaning given the birth and other surgical points of actual cutting by the various Dr. Stones.

I was a little surprised that the author took such time developing so many other characters in the story but only seemed to look at Shiva and Genet from the outside (Marion’s point of view). Perhaps that’s to keep them less likable overall, but it was most noticeable at the end.

I would recommend the book to a friend, but it can be intense to read, and is quite the time commitment. I may never have finished it if I wasn’t committed to a book club timeline.

There is a lot of sexual reference, including some coming of age moments that were a little uncomfortable to listen to (especially given the age of the characters at that time). A lot of medical language was used throughout, which can sometimes go right over your head, but it doesn’t necessarily take away from the experience.

If I had one negative takeaway it was the fact that the center of this story, the character that made it all possible, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, had the longest damn name ever! It was repeated no less than 1,000 times, and although I loved her character I was more than tired of hearing her name less than half way through! At one point I wondered if her name alone increased the page count for the author! Seemed unnecessary, but perhaps that was just a personal pet peeve that emerged.

Overall very good storytelling and the reader was perfect for the characters described.