Cutting for Stone / Abraham Verghese 541 p.

Verghese tried to write a great novel, and many of his reviewers clearly think he did. I suspect those high expectations were most of my problem here. The novel tells the story of Shiva and Marion Stone, conjoined twins, born to a nun (sigh...) in Addis Adaba, Ethiopia. They are raised by 2 doctors who make loving and stable adopted parents, but their lives are twisted by the absence of their biological parents, to say nothing of the impact of Ethiopian civil war. I loved the medical aspect of this book, with its ER-like scenes, and the portrait of Ethiopia and its capital city is fascinating. If Verghese writes another one, I'll read it, and hope that he tries to cram fewer Arundhati Roy-esque catastrophes into one single narrative.