Cutting For Stone - A Novel by Abraham Verghese - Book Review
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is a word short of being phenomenal.
Being a practicing physician and an exquisite writer, he manages to pull together the two to create a magnificent first novel.
Marion and Shiva Stone, the two protagonists in the story couldn't be more interesting.
Born from a mother who was a nun, they were orphaned at birth and conjoined at the skulls.
They were separated immediately, and they grew apart more than two brothers ever could.
Their father mysteriously disappears upon their birth, and the disappearance provides a constant back story for the novel, and which importance is later revealed in the story.
The story takes place in locations like Ethiopia and New York, the two travel the roads that further and further separate them physically and emotionally.
However, they are still reunited later, because of both their passion for medicine and the puzzling disappearance of their father.
The novel cannot be possibly put down.
It's gripping like a long lost love continuing to stay and linger on you.
And it's definitely a powerful first novel for Abraham Verghese.
Being compared, both positively and negatively, to authors like Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, John Irving, and Anne Tyler, he is a both a victim and a victor in his own right.
However one looks at it, it cannot be denied that something wonderful has been done with the novel.
Verghese's expertise in both medicine and writing perhaps? One thing is sure though, that Abraham Verghese definitely has his own magic when it comes to writing novels.
Being a practicing physician and an exquisite writer, he manages to pull together the two to create a magnificent first novel.
Marion and Shiva Stone, the two protagonists in the story couldn't be more interesting.
Born from a mother who was a nun, they were orphaned at birth and conjoined at the skulls.
They were separated immediately, and they grew apart more than two brothers ever could.
Their father mysteriously disappears upon their birth, and the disappearance provides a constant back story for the novel, and which importance is later revealed in the story.
The story takes place in locations like Ethiopia and New York, the two travel the roads that further and further separate them physically and emotionally.
However, they are still reunited later, because of both their passion for medicine and the puzzling disappearance of their father.
The novel cannot be possibly put down.
It's gripping like a long lost love continuing to stay and linger on you.
And it's definitely a powerful first novel for Abraham Verghese.
Being compared, both positively and negatively, to authors like Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, John Irving, and Anne Tyler, he is a both a victim and a victor in his own right.
However one looks at it, it cannot be denied that something wonderful has been done with the novel.
Verghese's expertise in both medicine and writing perhaps? One thing is sure though, that Abraham Verghese definitely has his own magic when it comes to writing novels.
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