Cutting For Stone

"The ambition is laudable, but too often accounts of operations - a bowel obstruction here, a vasectomy there - overwhelm the narrative. Characterization suffers."  -  Kirkus Reviews

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. 

"Masterful... Verghese’s gripping narrative moves over decades and generations from India to Ethiopia to an inner-city hospital in New York, describing the cultural and spiritual pull of these places... Even with its many stories and layers, Cutting for Stone remains clear and concise."  -  Meghan Ward, San Francisco Chronicle

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).