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

Ŵonderful sttory with multi-geberaltiobal plotline

Terrific character development. Spans over 50 years as characters age with many t ales and adventures. Introduces two generations of surgeons in hospitals of Africa, tEhiopiaa, New York and :Boston.
Story is engaging" a real page-rurner. One enjoys the plot lines so much: you won't want the book to end.
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Beautiful story of love in manu forms

Loved the way you could see the goodness in the characters. Their hearts were expressed so beautifully.

Dear Friend

This book and the writing of Abraham Verghese is like being in the company of a dear friend. A friend that you do not wish to have to say good-bye to as you near the end of the book.
And because his writing is poetry in prose, it is portable in my heart. I have enjoyed no author more than Abraham Verghese in years.
Thank you for this beautifully written book.🙏

well crafted story

love the crafting of a surgical story. I have read a few stories that were written by the same author

Loved this book!

The author was very good at drawing a picture with his words especially in the OR. As a physician, I found his characters so realistic! I loved how he could turn a phrase using typical phrases in atypical ways. I highly recommend this book.

Great story!

Well written! Amazing detail and story line!!
So good that it was hard to put down!!

Great

I thought this book was amazing. The narrator was perfect. It was wonderful learning some of Ethiopia's history. This is a must listen! Hope Abraham Verghese has another book on the way!

Such a great gift .

One is lucky to receive such a big, rich story.

Every once in a while they do come around. When someone shares their talent with others, we all win. And this is a big win.

This audio version is wonderfully done. Sunil Malhotra does such a great reading, he involves you at once, & you become one with the story, or could it possibly be the combination of author & narrator that made it all work so well?

Thank You Both.

Rewarding book

It took me a while to get into this story, but it was well worth the time. Occasionally I would get bogged down in details, but by the end I thought it was one of the best books I have listened to.

My new number 1

Touching, moving, amazing. I couldn't do anything but listen to this book for the past two days. There are many amazing snippets of philosophy. I loved it.