It’s been a while since I’ve had a very good read. This was it. In fact, this is a book that has been on my shelf for at least five years. I don’t know what I was waiting for. I want to be like Abraham Verghese, a physician who is an excellent writer. I haven’t yet read his memoir, My Own Country, which chronicles his time in Tennessee as a doctor during the 1980s AIDS epidemic, Can you believe that? That has been on my to-read shelf since the 1990s!
Sister Mary Joseph
Praise is a young nun from India who in 1947 finds herself on a ship en route
to a missionary post in Yemen. On the ship she saves the life of an Indian born
English doctor, Thomas Stone, bound for Ethiopia, who has fallen ill. A few years
later, destiny brings them together at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa. Seven
years later, “the everyday miracle of conception has taken place in the one
place it should not have: in Sister Mary Joseph Praise’s womb”. She is dying in
childbirth, and this is where we meet Shiva and Marion, her conjoined twins,
cut apart, whose long dramatic story sets the tone of the novel. The boys grow up with adopted parents at the
Missing Hospital where they are born after their presumed father, Thomas Stone,
runs away in grief. They grow up in the turmoiled Ethiopia of Emperor Haile
Selaisse’s reign until betrayal separates them and lands Marion in New York
City.
Praise is a young nun from India who in 1947 finds herself on a ship en route
to a missionary post in Yemen. On the ship she saves the life of an Indian born
English doctor, Thomas Stone, bound for Ethiopia, who has fallen ill. A few years
later, destiny brings them together at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa. Seven
years later, “the everyday miracle of conception has taken place in the one
place it should not have: in Sister Mary Joseph Praise’s womb”. She is dying in
childbirth, and this is where we meet Shiva and Marion, her conjoined twins,
cut apart, whose long dramatic story sets the tone of the novel. The boys grow up with adopted parents at the
Missing Hospital where they are born after their presumed father, Thomas Stone,
runs away in grief. They grow up in the turmoiled Ethiopia of Emperor Haile
Selaisse’s reign until betrayal separates them and lands Marion in New York
City.
The story is
excellent. It’s outstanding! The characters are so vivid, so interesting,
and so very human, you forget that this is fiction. Every day, Shiva and Marion
and their supporting characters would haunt my mind while I waited to get back
to the book to find out what happens next. Powerful! As if that weren’t enough,
the way in which the author weaves in medicine and surgery (and there’s plenty
of both) is quite remarkable. I’m in love with this book, can you tell?
excellent. It’s outstanding! The characters are so vivid, so interesting,
and so very human, you forget that this is fiction. Every day, Shiva and Marion
and their supporting characters would haunt my mind while I waited to get back
to the book to find out what happens next. Powerful! As if that weren’t enough,
the way in which the author weaves in medicine and surgery (and there’s plenty
of both) is quite remarkable. I’m in love with this book, can you tell?
A lover of mangoes. A woman - smart, without pretense, lefthanded, Afropolitan - navigating this thing called life. An unapologetic believer in social justice and karma. Choosing to radiate positive energy and be true to myself. Here, my musings.
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