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

Totally Engaging and Brilliant

I finished the author’s remarkable ‘A Covenant of Water’ last month, and - hungry for more - delved into this book to discover another amazing saga. I am so picky about my fiction, but this author is a master at weaving heartfelt and authentic stories within historical events. Verghese is a modern day Scheherazade.

BLOWN AWAY

THE. MOST. BEAUTIFUL. BOOK. I. HAVE. EVER. LISTENED. TO. I am devastated it is over. This author is brilliant.

Wish there were more by now his author

The best!!! Second book by this author, I’ve listened to. If you like medical info, you need to partake in this.

A Wonderful story

It’s been a while since I’ve had an audible book that hit 5 stars across the board. The story in my opinion was magnificent and the narration was excellent. A story that hit so many themes of love, sacrifice, and forgiveness. Highly recommend this book.

Masterful storyteller!

Stayed up all night listening - story has so many turns and the medical details are perfectly contextualized and clear to understand. The human and spiritual elements touch your heart.

Great story

Narrator was excellent
Story was epic and moving
Rich characters and insightful examination of the flawed human experience

Second Read is Even Better

This book is on my short list of favorites! Loved the story and characters even more!

Excellent

Everything I want and need in a book. This is why I fell in love with reading, to meet people so like me yet so different. To see inside places I’ll never go and visit lands I’ll never see. Highly recommended.

Have listened 4 times

since 2013. It is probably my favourite book out of an audio library of 2000 books.

Quintessential epic novel

Excellent character development and evocative locations drive along this epic novel over various eras and continents. The narrator is excellent and lends authenticity to the story. By the end I missed the characters and not being able to continue listening to their story.