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ejdecoster's review
4.0
Recommended by a former student worker, and I'm glad I listened. Verghese's perspective on the early days of AIDS in rural Tennessee is powerfully, frankly, and thoughtfully told, and accessible to a layperson. I did feel that his personal narrative was a bit oddly attached - not quite enough information to be fully informative, but enough to occasionally distract from the main narrative. Still, highly recommended to any readers interested in public health, HIV/AIDS history, or memoirs.
bartendm's review
3.0
Cutting for Stone is one of my absolute favorite novels, so I was excited to read this memoir of Dr. Verghese's actual practice. It was very interesting to learn more about his actual life and the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and homophobia that was so much attached to attempts at treatment. I am glad to have read the book to gain an understanding of real people's lives affected by the disease and also how hard it must have been for those caring for them.
I was disappointed in the quality of the writing though, as it felt more like a diary than a memoir with a significant story arc and transformation of the author. As a result, I had to force myself to continue at times. This was his first major work after completing an MFA and we are lucky that his skill as a writer continued to improve as evidenced in Cutting for Stone.
My Own Country felt like a eulogy for many of the patients highlighted, as if each patient needed to be honored with as many words as possible. As a result, the life of the memoirist felt like it was more in the background and we lost the benefit of the transitions in his own life that happened during that time. There were the bad dreams and the sense he was getting burnt out, but it took reading his interviews for me to understand more of what happened to Abraham the person during those years.
I was disappointed in the quality of the writing though, as it felt more like a diary than a memoir with a significant story arc and transformation of the author. As a result, I had to force myself to continue at times. This was his first major work after completing an MFA and we are lucky that his skill as a writer continued to improve as evidenced in Cutting for Stone.
My Own Country felt like a eulogy for many of the patients highlighted, as if each patient needed to be honored with as many words as possible. As a result, the life of the memoirist felt like it was more in the background and we lost the benefit of the transitions in his own life that happened during that time. There were the bad dreams and the sense he was getting burnt out, but it took reading his interviews for me to understand more of what happened to Abraham the person during those years.
pmkitzer's review
5.0
A beautiful story of a doctor in eastern Tennessee treating AiDS patients at the beginning of the crisis. I love Verghese’s writing- he’s smart, tender, kind, and he describes perfectly the struggle between fear and compassion inherent to this terrible disease. I loved this book.
bookwrapt's review
4.0
I had trouble at times with the stream of consciousness he included about gay culture and women, but it was otherwise an engaging and moving read.
olgarych's review
5.0
A great account of what it was like to be a doctor in a rural area in the early days of AIDS. A great but sad read.
jenniferbbookdragon's review
5.0
What a rollercoaster ride! An amazing look at the early years of the AIDS crisis in rural Tennessee through the eyes of the only infectious disease specialist in the region. Laughs, tears, and eye opening insights from a sensitive, caring physician pushed to his limits. I read this for a book club and it was a unanimous hit.
nferre's review
5.0
"Everyone thought it had been a freak accident, a one-time thing in Johnson City. This was a small town in the country, a town of clean-living, good country people. AIDS was clearly a big city problem. It was something that happened in other kinds of lives."
Cutting for Stone has been one of my favorite books for years, but I was reluctant to read this memoir as I usually find memoirs anything but memorable. But this book grabbed me and hooked me before I had turned the first page. Two doctors had read this and highly recommended it as being accurate and worthy. I found the book to be highly readable, compassionate, literate and informative.
Verghese's thoughts on the evolution of HIV and how a small town in Tennessee handled the influx of AIDs patients is insightful and introspective, his narrative humane. He lets us into his life as a foreign doctor struggling to fit in and understand his changing community as well as his battle to balance the death toll surrounding him and his outside family and life.
Cutting for Stone has been one of my favorite books for years, but I was reluctant to read this memoir as I usually find memoirs anything but memorable. But this book grabbed me and hooked me before I had turned the first page. Two doctors had read this and highly recommended it as being accurate and worthy. I found the book to be highly readable, compassionate, literate and informative.
Verghese's thoughts on the evolution of HIV and how a small town in Tennessee handled the influx of AIDs patients is insightful and introspective, his narrative humane. He lets us into his life as a foreign doctor struggling to fit in and understand his changing community as well as his battle to balance the death toll surrounding him and his outside family and life.
mimii's review
5.0
So well written and readable. Traces one doctor's experience facing the AIDS epidemic and provides poignant back stories for many of his patients. Absolutely recommend this book.
harkless's review
4.0
A foreign physician works in rural Tennesse in the 1980s just as HIV is starting to appear there. A true story about prejudice, compassion, rejection and finding home.
jereco1962's review
5.0
Such a lovely, heart-wrenching book. Verghese, physician and author (I'd have to hate him for being successful in two such different realms, but as this book shows: he's a lovely person, so...I can't), has given us a marvelous gift with this memoir of the early AIDS years. He was in a unique situation in which to observe the ravages of this disease - physically, of course, but emotionally and socially, as well. An outsider himself, he had an immediate connection with his patients, all of whom were - or became - outsiders. Some, due to being gay in rural Tennessee; others, because they had contracted the disease through tainted blood/plasma supplies, because they had a disease the world associated with only risky behaviors: as if they brought this upon themselves. The author tried to keep a clinical distance, but being a sensitive human being at the height of a horrifying plague, it was impossible for him to do so. To the benefit of his patients, and now to ours, as well.