Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese) - What took me so many years to find this?

Cutting for Stone is not a book - it is an experience, a journey, a relationship. By the end of the book, you are part of the family and dealing with loss. I do not know why more people have not read it, why it has not been top of the charts and why it has not won prestigious awards like the Booker Prize. When I list the top 10 books I have read in my life, this will feature in that list.

Cutting for Stone is about identical twin brothers Marion and Shiva, born of the secret union of an Indian nun and a British surgeon, both working in a charity hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Abandoned when they are born by their biological parents (by the mother because she did not survive giving birth to them and by the father because he could not deal with their birth), they are adopted by doctor colleagues of their parents who step in and make them their own, raising them with all the love and care in the world. Being brought up so near the hospital, seeing the wonderful work their parents do and being exposed to the good that can be done, they both gravitate towards becoming doctors - one via the academic route of studying medicine and the other with a lot of exposure, skill and self study. The boys were born cojoined and separated surgically but retain a preternatural link through life - understanding each other without words. Their life is filled with love from Matron, who runs the Missing Hospital on a tight budget (why is it called that, you ask? Well, read the book!) and all the other staff. 

 As the boys grow up, they see the changes around them - the country goes through political turmoil, an attempted coup, rebellion by parts of the country (the Eritrean struggle for independence) and changes in the landscape. Relationships change with old ones that wither away and new ones that get built, trust gets questioned again and again and circumstances and situations determine the ebb and flow of life. Marion and Shiva grow to be different people but still bound by a thread that only they understand. They understand the sacrifices their parents make for them and how greatness is multifaceted with no one way of defining it.

Circumstances force Marion to flee the country and move to America, where he works as a doctor for a charity hospital in a poor neighbourhood. Till he meets his biological father Dr. Stone, quite by accident. Both men deal with their past - the father with the guilt of abandoning his new borns and the son with the hatred he harboured for him. The past catches up with Marion, when his childhood sweetheart and the reason for the wedge between him and his twin and the reason he had to flee his birth country, comes back into his life briefly. What follows is an exploration of love and what it means to be a family, what it means to be a brother and a twin who shared the womb for 8 months and how it is not Shiva and Marion but ShivaMarion. 

The descriptions of medical procedures are many and may seem tedious to some readers. For me, they make the book richer. I believe they are critical to the story and how explain a lot even if overly technical in places. The references to medical practices and history (including the title Cutting for Stone and what that phrase means in medical terms) are meaningful and add to the story depth. Each character is built up with enough back story and relevance to the main plot and brings us closer to their lives helping us understand why what happens.

Dr. Abraham Verghese's writing is magical. His turns of phrase, expressions, descriptions are so beautiful that I can see Missing Hospital and its hillside in my mind's eye. I am totally in love with his writing and the beauty and emotions his words evoke.