Teaser Tuesdays – Cutting for Stone

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

With the colon swollen to Hindenburg proportions it would be all too easy to nick the bowel and spill feces into the abdominal cavity. He made a middle incision, then deepened it carefully, like a sapper defusing a bomb.

Just when panic was setting in because he felt he was going nowhere, the glistening surface of the peritoneum—that delicate membrane that lined the abdominal cavity—came into view. When he opened the peritoneum, straw-colored fluid came out. Inserting his finger into the hole and using it as a backstop, he cut the peritoneum along the length of the incision.

~ Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Don’t get me wrong. So far, I am really loving this book. Good old-fashioned compelling story-telling, but really, I could do without some of these medical details 🙁

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

7 comments

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  1. Claire 'Word by Word'

    Well the author is a doctor so I guess he makes that side of things a little more realistic than most authors, but this is a fantastic book and was a real highlight for me in 2012 especially as it came soon after reading a book that took me 2 weeks to finish and left me frustrated. I really hope you enjoy the storytelling and insight into another culture.

    • Nish

      @Claire: Yes, I can understand that. It’s just that I am rather squeamish about medical details :(, but the book is getting better and better as I read further. I think I am going to love this book in spite of getting bothered by the medical details.

  2. Elizabeth

    It gets “tons” better. Don’t give up because of the length or the medical content.

    ENJOY!!

    Elizabeth
    Silver’s Reviews

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