Notes

a novel
Abraham Verghese.
541 p.
Summary: Marion and Shiva Stone are twin sons, born of a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Ethiopia. Orphaned by their mother's death in childbirth and their father's disappearance, sharing a fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. But their love for the same woman tears them apart and forces Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee to America. There he finds refuge in his work at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him - nearly destroying him - Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.