Book Review by Cos Barnes

When you read some books, you know you will reread them. I felt this way about “A Beautiful Mind,” the story of John Forbes Nash. I also feel this way about “Cutting For Stone.” In fact, I looked up the Hippocratic Oath and read parts of it to clarify in my mind what cutting for stone means and why three of the characters – twins Marion and Shiva and their father, Thomas- bore the name of Stone.

The book is engrossing as it is chock full of plots, compelling characters and an interesting setting – Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. That is Missing Hospital, not Mission as it was supposed to be named. The book spans the countries of Ethiopia, India and America, and generations from the 40s to the 80s. It is a story of love and betrayal, compassion and redemption. And, of course, being written by a doctor, it is thorough in its depiction of medical matters, terms and methods.

The twins’ mother, a beautiful Indian nun, dies at their birth from complications of the hidden pregnancy. Their father, a skilled English surgeon, who worked with their mother in the operating theater, as it is called in Ethiopia, disappears at their birth and they are raised by two doctors, Hema and Abhi Ghosh, who also work at Missing Hospital. Incredible individuals, the two doctors raise the two boys as if they were their own and encourage their leanings toward medicine as careers.

Both of the sons become doctors. Marion comes to the states, where he settles in the Bronx in a hospital similar to the one in Addis Ababa. He eventually runs into his father. It is always a strained relationship because the son, nor his brother, nor those who raised him, ever understood why Dr. Stone left Missing. It is a powerful story of medical miracles, human triumphs and failures.