Cutting for Stone

Shiva is Marion’s twin, born just after him. Shiva’s life is almost destroyed before birth when Thomas Stone tries to extract the twins with forceps. Physically, Shiva is a mirror image of Marion—everything from his cowlick to his dominant hand mirrors Marion. However, Shiva is very different from Marion. He is intense, withdrawn, and can be insensitive to others’ feelings. At the same time, he is compassionate and gentle with animals and focuses his career on treating women, specifically those suffering from fistulas, a condition that often results from female genital mutilation. As Marion put it, “Shiva was so tuned to the distress of animals and pregnant women, yet he could be blissfully unaware of the pain of other humans, especially if he was the cause” (334). Shiva is also creative, illustrated by his passion for dance, which he learns from Hema.

Shiva is single-minded in his studies—his prized possession is his copy of Gray’s Anatomy, which, in a singular show of support, he gives to Marion when Marion is forced to flee Ethiopia. He is sexually active from an early age, in contrast with Marion. He has sex indiscriminately, including with the probationer, who thinks he is Marion. Shiva’s failure to understand why this is a problem showcases his selfish tendencies and foreshadows him having sex with Genet and the turmoil that results. He is the catalyst for major changes in Marion’s life, and when Marion cuts ties with him, Shiva makes little attempt to reconcile.

However, when Marion’s life is in danger, Shiva unhesitatingly undergoes a dangerous, untried operation to save his life. When asked why, he shows that he has changed, saying, “Marion always thought I never looked back. He saw me as always acting only for myself. He was right. [...] But…seeing that my brother might die, I have looked back. I have regrets'' (620). Shiva has changed to the point where he is willing to put his own life at risk for his brother. Although Shiva loses his life, he lives on in Marion, and the two are ShivaMarion once more.

Genet is Rosina and Zemui’s daughter, both of whom are from Eritrea. Rosina is Marion and Shiva’s nanny, so Genet is raised alongside them, to the point where Hema refers to Genet as her daughter and Tsige believes that Genet is Marion’s biological sister. Zemui has a wife and children elsewhere, and while he is alive, Genet is contemptuous of him. After her father is killed in Mebratu’s unsuccessful coup, she comes to identify strongly with her Eritrean ethnicity, proudly wearing the traditional tattoos of Zemui’s tribe and mourning her father. Although she initially plans to become a doctor, she loses interest in her studies, becoming more absorbed with her father’s death and her hatred of the Emperor. When she helps hijack an airplane, Marion is forced to flee Ethiopia because of his association with her. As such, Genet becomes the catalyst for Marion’s journey to America.

Genet is rebellious and beautiful, and her life is one of hardship, as she endures her father’s death and genital mutilation at the hands of her mother. She is also Marion’s love interest from a young age. When she has sex with Shiva, Marion cannot forgive her, even though she admits soon after that she wishes she waited for him.

After Genet arrives in America, she marries an Eritrean man and has a child but is sent to prison for attempting to kill her husband and his mistress. Her child is given up for adoption, and when she finally sees Marion after she gets out of prison, she has both tuberculosis and hepatitis. After she and Marion have sex, Genet disappears, and Marion finds out later that she died in Texas searching for her child. She gives Marion hepatitis, resulting in the donor transplant surgery, and Shiva’s eventual death. Throughout the novel, Genet is central to Marion’s life, first as his love interest and then as the catalyst for several significant changes in his life.

Thomas Stone is Marion and Shiva’s birth father. He is British but was born and raised in Madras, India. When he was a child, his father traveled frequently, and as a result, Thomas and his mother were frequently alone and inseparable. When he was still young, Thomas’s mother died from an aneurysm, which Thomas later learns resulted from syphilis that his father gave her. His mother’s death and the care and mentorship offered by Dr. Ross when he was young directed him toward medicine.

While on board his ship to Africa, he meets Sister Mary Joseph Praise, and as they work together over the next seven years, he falls deeply in love with her, although he does not realize it until she is dying. Thomas is a brilliant surgeon who is wholly focused on medicine—as he says, he puts his faith there. When his knowledge of medicine fails to save Sister, Thomas experiences a crisis of faith.

After Sister’s death, Thomas withdraws and focuses all of his efforts on medicine. He disappears, leaving Hema and Ghosh to raise the twin sons, which Marion acknowledges was “the right thing” due to Thomas’s alcohol addiction and mental health crisis (657). In addition, Marion recognizes that because of his abandonment, Thomas was able to fully focus on medicine and make important advancements in his field. These advancements allow him to perform the operation that saves Marion’s life.

Thomas is one of the people with whom Marion must achieve closure to move on in his life. When Marion is very young, he wishes for his father to return but later becomes angry with him. When he finally meets Thomas and hears his full story, Marion is able to feel compassion for him and let go of his anger. In the end, Thomas is able to find closure as well by saving his son’s life after abandoning him as an infant.

Ghosh is Marion and Shiva’s adoptive father. He is a mentor to Marion and takes him under his wing at a young age, allowing him to observe him at work. Ghosh is an internal medicine specialist and becomes Ethiopia’s foremost expert on sexually transmitted diseases. After Thomas disappears, he also becomes a surgeon and is responsible for all the surgery at Missing hospital.

Ghosh is not an attractive man, according to Hema, but “the sum total of all this made him not ugly, but strangely beautiful” (54). He possesses a love for life, optimism, and a willingness to undertake new challenges and adventures that Marion emulates whenever he is fearful. Ghosh encourages Marion to follow his passion and travel to America to study medicine. He is also wise, compassionate, and forgiving, as evidenced by his friendship with Thomas throughout the novel. He also quietly orchestrates Marion’s reunion with Thomas, and he helps the twins get to know their parents through his gifts of Thomas’s book to Shiva and Sister’s letter to Marion.

Ghosh dies of leukemia, which he kept secret for several years. Marion is the first to discover it, diagnosing him correctly and showing his progress and skill as a doctor. Marion learns about medicine from Ghosh, but he also learns from the way that Ghosh approaches life with curiosity, openness, and compassion.