The magic of a good book is that it takes you on a journey and you feel as if you have lived vicariously through the characters. Cutting for Stone is that kind of book. The narrator and protagonist, Marion Stone, recounts his life story starting with his mother, an Indian nun, and his father, a British doctor, meeting on a boat from India to Yemen. The majority of the book takes place in Ethiopia as Marion and his twin brother survive a precarious birth and come of age living at “Missing” hospital in the Ethiopian highlands. He later travels to the U.S. to finish his surgical education in a ghetto hospital.
Verghese, a doctor of internal medicine and pulmonary and infectious diseases, builds this family saga around his love of medicine- the passion good doctors must have, the calling. Marion’s story includes the history, myths, scents, and foods of Ethiopia, shifting seamlessly from beauty to poverty and back again. As in all family sagas, there’s love, regret, loss, humor, mystery, and redemption. Verghese even throws in a little magic realism for good measure.
The medical terms and surgical descriptions may put off some readers, but I found the book engrossing.
