Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Cutting for Stone begins with birth and death, when Sister Mary Joseph Praise, a nun at an Ethiopian mission hospital - known locally as Missing Hospital - dies in childbirth with twin boys. Thomas Stone, the surgeon who fathered the twins and had no idea of the pregnancy, is shattered by her death and abandons the twins in the first hour of their lives. But from that hour, Marion and Shiva Praise Stone are part of a unique and eccentric extended family, the Missing People. Missing's two other doctors, Hema and Ghosh, adopt and raise the boys as their own, but everyone in the hospital community plays a role in their upbringing and helps to define the paths they take.
It's an amazing book about love and surgery and revolution and building a family of choice. Its scale is both epic and minute. It's graphic and gory, and I learned some things about the human body that I never wanted to know, but it was so worth it to read this beautiful story.
I craved Ethiopian food during and for months after reading Cutting for Stone, a craving difficult to satisfy because of the sad lack of Ethiopian restaurants anywhere near us. We finally got the chance while visiting some family last month; it was fabulous and so worth the wait!
It's an amazing book about love and surgery and revolution and building a family of choice. Its scale is both epic and minute. It's graphic and gory, and I learned some things about the human body that I never wanted to know, but it was so worth it to read this beautiful story.
I craved Ethiopian food during and for months after reading Cutting for Stone, a craving difficult to satisfy because of the sad lack of Ethiopian restaurants anywhere near us. We finally got the chance while visiting some family last month; it was fabulous and so worth the wait!