A Review of Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Cutting for Stone is the sweeping, vibrant story of twin boys, Marion and Shiva Stone. The book begins with a history of how their parents, English physician Thomas Stone and Indian nun Sister Mary Joseph Praise, came to know each other while working in "Missing" hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We as the readers are mostly unaware of any romantic relationship between these two characters, but Sister Mary begins a complicated labor that results in her death and the abandonment of the twin boys by their father. The first part of the story is told by these two characters, as well as the eventual parents of Shiva and Marion, Missing physicians Hema and Ghosh. Both of these doctors are originally from India, but live and work in Ethiopia, treating the destitute when no one else will. The rest of the story is told from Marion's point of view; his childhood with brother Shiva and de-facto sister, Genet. Marion eventually leaves Ethiopia where he's been training to be a doctor, as is Shiva. The remainder of the story, the last 1/3, takes place in New York City.
This book was quite interesting on several levels. First, the author is himself a physician. He writes with a great deal of medical perspective, which is both fascinating, and a bit off-putting to the average lay-person. His analogies can be quite graphic, as he compares movement to swarming maggots, or graphically depicts the reconstruction of a vaginal fistula. Personally, I am very interested in medicine and surgery. Most of these similies and descriptions didn't bother me, but I could see how they might be a turn off to some. Also, Dr. Verghese's use of language is erudite in the extreme. He is obviously an accomplished writer, but again, your average reader might be turned off by the numerous trips to the dictionary just to understand a couple of pages of text.
I found the first section of this story, at least 100 pages, to be very slow moving. The author was telling the story of a very violent, bloody birth and took an absurd amount of pages to get to the point. I was not optimistic for the rest of the story, but I found that after that point, it was a much smoother tale.
I did very much enjoy the unpredictability of his story; nearly everything was a surprise. Perhaps if I had some background knowledge of Ethiopian history, I might have been better able to predict some of the events. I did get to learn a bit about a different culture, which is always enjoyable. Dr. Verghese must be intimately familiar with the cultures and languages of this African country and capital city that he depicts in such rich detail.
In all, I would recommend this story but with caution. Some of the issues I noted might cause readers to become discouraged or bored reading this tale. I found it worth the diligence that was needed to get through the beginning, as well as the vocabulary. I was very glad to have spent time with these characters.