Cutting for Stone

Verghese can tell a story better than anyone. It is a big old fashioned story of twins born to a British surgeon and an Indian nun in Ethiopia. It reminds me of Rohinton's Mistry's A Fine Balance, the characters pulling at your heartstrings, although without as much squalor.

Verghese is actually a doctor and while reading the book I feel like he had secretly operated on me, removed my heart and held it in his hands throughout, it's one of those books where they hold you prisoner, he had my heart in his hands until the very end where he put it back in and sadly stitched up the opening as I put the book down. As a doctor too he relished some of the medical information that I could have done without but other than that he can really write a good story.