Sophia C. reviewed on 5/24/2011 + 289 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 3

Cutting for Stone is an incredibly poignant story which will stay with me for a long time. Like all origin myths, it features larger than life characters and mythical settings. More specifically, it is narrated by Marion Praise Stone, who came into being from an unspoken love between a beautiful Indian nun and the brilliant English surgeon Thomas Stone she worked beside, in Operating Theatre 3 at the Missing Hospital in 1954 Addis Ababa. From the same theatre, his mother dies from complications of labor and his father dashes, devastated and unaware of his paternity. Marion and his identical brother Shiva were raised at Missing by Hema and Ghosh, a pair of Indian physicians, their lives intertwined with medicine and each other. As their coming-of-age develops against the backdrop of political turmoil in Ethiopia's capital, Marion is forced to flee to New York City. The medicine is real. None of the characters are superfluous. The title, taken from the Hippocratic Oath, takes on multiple meanings considering the profession and names of the parties involved. Comic moments pepper this story of love and betrayal, forgiveness and redemption, during which I cried freely and jotted down passages that affirm medicine (and life itself) can and should be a "romantic and passionate pursuit."

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