Cutting for Stone is an absolutely beautiful story about love and medicine. It is first the forbidden love of a beautiful Indian nun and a British doctor, both of whom are working in a small clinic/hospital in mid-twentieth century Ethiopia. Next there is the love between their twin boys, who are left orphaned by her death during their birth and his disappearance. Then there is the family love that evolves between their adopted parents, the two doctors who delivered them, and the babies. Also, there is the love of the country, the images, sounds, and smells brought sympathetically to life by Dr. Abraham Verghese. Conflict arises when both of the boys love a young woman they grew up with -- their housekeeper's daughter.
667 pages
