WORLD FICTION

Dr. Abraham Verghese turns his remarkable empathy into powerful fiction in this story that draws on his medical training, his years of practice, and his childhood in Ethiopia. The principal narrator of Cutting For Stone (Knopf, $26.95) is Marion Praise Stone, one of a set of identical twins born to a dying nurse, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, in Addis Ababa in the early 1950s. The father, surgeon Thomas Stone, disappeared immediately after their birth, leaving the twins to be raised by Dr. Hemlatha and Dr. Ghosh, who followed Hema to Addis to work in the mission hospital. The backdrop is Ethiopia’s deteriorating political situation during and after Haile Selassie’s regime. Verghese’s capacity for empathy was notable in his previous nonfiction, as was his interest in the human condition. But to spin an imaginative tale is a talent of a different order, and he has exceeded expectation. There is great assurance in Verghese’s writing and ebullience in his storytelling. Carla Cohen

Margaret Atwood’s visionary The Year Of The Flood (Nan A. Talese, $26.95) continues where Oryx and Crake left off. The long-awaited flood, which is actually a plague, has destroyed most human life on the planet, but two women remain: Toby and Ren, who once lived together in the group called God’s Gardeners, a religious organization devoted to preserving the natural world. The women now lead totally different lives, each surviving in her own way, and their combined memories reveal the painful events which have led to their present situation. Atwood perfectly creates a future world, one where gene-splicing, corporate power, cosmetic perfection, and class disparities have spiraled out of control. Adam Waterreus