My Wednesday-morning brothers (Randy Townsend, Baker Duncan, Olivier Nadal, Drew Cauthorn, Guy Bodine, and especially Jack Willome) and their wives (and especially you, Dee!) gave me love and faith and held me accountable. “No greater love …”
Tom Rozanski, neighbor, colleague, and urologist, gave me advice on the vasectomy scene as well as other surgical issues, for which I am most grateful. Rajender Reddy and Gabe Garcia helped me think through issues related to hepatitis B.
Anand and Madhu Karnad, my dearest and oldest friends, read and heard many sections of this and all my previous books over the years; they gave and continue to give me love and sustenance, and I know I have a home wherever they are.
I am grateful to John Irving for his friendship all these years. I have learned so much from him both in our correspondence and in his published work.
Ralph Horwitz, M.D., chairman of medicine at Stanford, created a home for me; I am so grateful for his vision and his and Sally's friendship. I thank my brother, George, and his wife, Ann, and the Kailaths, as well as Helen Bing, for introducing me to Stanford's charms years before I dreamed of coming here.
My lovely wife, Sylvia, spent hours entering the changes that I would write on the manuscript and did this several times over the years. She more than anyone, but also Tristan, Jacob, and Steven, put up with my absences from society and sustained me through the ups and downs in the writing of this book. Gracias mi amor; con los años que me quedan …
Mary Evans, my agent, sold my first story to The New Yorker before we met in person, and she has kept the faith with me since those days in Iowa in 1991. Her discerning eye and wise counsel have made a writer of me, and her friendship has made me a better person. Robin Desser had a hand in my first book, and it was a privilege to get to work with her on this one. Robin saw this book through its many iterations and spent innumerable hours with it and with me, and I am so indebted to her. I have often thought that the grace, passion, humility, and extraordinary skill she brings to her craft are attributes she shares with the physicians I most admire. My thanks also to Sarah Rothbard, Robin's wonderful assistant. I am most grateful to Sonny Mehta for his enthusiasm for this story and his steadfast support of my writing.
Medicine is a demanding mistress, yet she is faithful, generous, and true. She gives me the privilege of seeing patients and of teaching students at the bedside, and thereby she gives meaning to everything I do. Like Ghosh, every year, at commencement, I renew my vows with her: I swear by Apollo and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia to be true to her, for she is the source of all … I shall not cut for stone.
Abraham Verghese,
Stanford, California, June 2008
Bibliography
Anderson, R., and R. Romfh. Technique in the Use of Surgical Tools. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1980.
Ayele, N. Wit and Wisdom of Ethiopia. Hollywood, Calif.: Tsehai Publishers and Distributors, 1998.
Bailey, H. Pye's Surgical Handicraft. 17th ed. Bristol, England: John Wright & Sons, 1956.
Bierman, J., and C. Smith. Fire in the Night: Wingate of Burma, Ethiopia, and Zion. New York: Random House, 1999.
Coleman, D. The Scent of Eucalyptus: A Missionary Childhood in Ethiopia. Fred-ericton, New Brunswick, Canada: Goose Lane Editions, 2003.
Cook, H. Fifty Years a Country Doctor. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
Cope, Z. The Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen in Rhyme. London: H. K. Lewis & Co., Ltd., 1962.
Dreger, A. D. One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Gould, G. M., and W. E. Pyle. Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine. New York: W. B. Saunders, 1896.
Habte-Mariam, M., and C. Price. The Rich Man and the Singer: Folktales from Ethiopia. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1971.
Hertzler, A. E. The Horse and Buggy Doctor. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1938.
Humphries, S. V. The Life of Hamilton Bailey. Beckenham, England: Ravens -wood Publications, 1973.
Keller, E. J. Revolutionary Ethiopia: From Empire to People's Republic. Blooming-ton: Indiana University Press, 1991.
Lambie, T. A. Boot and Saddle in Africa. New York: Fleming H. Redell Co., 1943.
A Doctor Without a Country. New York: Fleming H. Redell Co., 1939.
Marcus H. G. The Politics of Empire: Ethiopia, Great Britain and the United States, 1941–1974. Lawrenceville, N.J.: Red Sea Press, 1983.
Marston A. Hamilton Bailey: A Surgeons Life. London: Greenwich Medical Media Ltd., 1999.
Melly, A. J. M. John Melly of Ethiopia. Ed. K. Nelson and A. Sullivan. London: Faber & Faber, 1937.
Speert, H. Iconographia Gyniatrica: A Pictorial History of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Philadelphia: F A. Davis Co., 1973.
Smith, I. Wish I Might. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955.
Waugh E. Waugh in Abyssinia. Harlow, Essex, England: Longman, 1936.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABRAHAM VERGHESE is Professor and Senior Associate Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He has served on the faculty at East Tennessee State University, the University of Iowa, Texas Tech University, and the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, where he was the founding director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics and where he holds an adjunct professorship. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he is the author of My Own Country, a 1994 NBCC Finalist and one of five books chosen as Best Book of the Year by Time, and The Tennis Partner, a New York Times Notable Book. His essays and short stories have ap peared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Story, Granta, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He lives in Palo Alto, California.
Copyright © 2009 by Abraham Verghese
All rights reserved.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Verghese, A. (Abraham), [date]
Cutting for stone : a novel / Abraham Verghese.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-27134-1
1. Physicians—Fiction. 2. Brothers—Fiction. 3. Fathers and sons—Fiction.
4. Ethiopia—Fiction. 5. Bronx (New York, NY.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3622.E744C87 2009
813‘.6—dc22 2008028252
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books By This Author
Title Page
Dedication
PROLOGUE: The Coming
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1: The Typhoid State Revisited
CHAPTER 2: The Missing Finger
CHAPTER 3: The Gate of Tears
CHAPTER 4: The Five-F Rule
CHAPTER 5: Last Moments
CHAPTER 6: My Abyssinia
CHAPTER 7: Fetor Terribilis
CHAPTER 8: Missing People
CHAPTER 9: Where Duty Lies
CHAPTER 10: Dance of Shiva
PART TWO
CHAPTER 11: Bedside Language and Bedroom Language
CHAPTER 12: Land's End
CHAPTER 13: Praise in the Arms of Jesus
CHAPTER 14: Knowledge of the Redeemer
CHAPTER 15: Crookedness of: the Serpent
CHAPTER 16: Bride for a Year
PART THREE
CHAPTER 17: “Tizita”
CHAPTER 18: Sins of the Father
CHAPTER 19: Giving Dogs Their Due
CHAPTER 20: Blind Man's Buff
CHAPTER 21: Knowing What You Will Hear
CHAPTER 22: The School of Suffering
CHAPTER 23: The Afterbird and Other Animals
CHAPTER 24: Loving the Dying
CHAPTER 25: Anger as a: Form of Love
CHAPTER 26: The Face of Suffering
CHAPTER 27: Ans
wering Medicine
CHAPTER 28: The Good Doctor
CHAPTER 29: Abu Kassem's Slippers
CHAPTER 30: Word for Words
CHAPTER 31: The Dominion of the Flesh
CHAPTER 32: A Time to Sow
CHAPTER 33: A Form of Madness
CHAPTER 34: A Time to Reap
CHAPTER 35: One Fever from Another
CHAPTER 36: Prognostic Signs
CHAPTER 37: Exodus
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 38: Welcome Wagon
CHAPTER 39: The Cure for What Ails Thee
CHAPTER 40: Salt and Pepper
CHAPTER 41: One Knot at a Time
CHAPTER 42: Bloodlines
CHAPTER 43: Grand Rounds
CHAPTER 44: Begin at the: Beginning
CHAPTER 45: A Matter of Time
CHAPTER 46: Room with a View
CHAPTER 47: Missing Letters
CHAPTER 48: Five Fingers
CHAPTER 49: Queen's Move
CHAPTER 50: Slit the Thew
CHAPTER 51: The Devil's Choice
CHAPTER 52: A Pair of Unpaired Organs
CHAPTER 53: She Is Coming
CHAPTER 54: Homefires
CHAPTER 55: The Afterbird
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright
Cutting for Stone Page 63