Abraham Verghese
Biography
As a mix between the medical writing of Somerset
Maugham and the cultural story-telling of V.S. Naipaul, Dr. Abraham
Verghese writes his story, My Own Country, chronicling the
tragic appearance of AIDS in our society. Verghese was born in 1955
to well-educated, South Indian, Christian parents who migrated to Ethiopia.
After starting his medical education, Verghese was forced to leave
Ethiopia in 1973 due to the unstable
political situation . Upon arriving in America, he began work
as an orderly. Eventually, he returned to India to finish his medical education
at the Madras Medical College in India. Returning to America
in 1980, Verghese entered a residency program at East Tennessee State University,
in Johnson City, Tennessee, and later continued infectious disease training
in Boston ("Verghese, Abraham 1955- "). In 1985, Verghese
returned to Johnson City with his wife and two children.
When AIDS entered the local community, Verghese was branded the local
AIDS expert. He experienced conflicts between his medical career
and his personal life as his patient count increased to one-hundred.
He decided to leave Johnson City for a position at the University of Iowa
outpatient AIDS Clinic (Holley 48). While in Iowa, he enrolled in
the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, where, under the mentorship of
John Irving, Verghese began publishing short stories in The New Yorker,
The North American Review, and other magazines (48). His experience
in Iowa served as a stepping stone to his writing career. Leaving
the writers' program, Verghese became Professor of Medicine and Chief of
Infectious Disease at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center in El Paso, TX
. He began writing the story of Johnson City at this time emerging
with his first bookMy Own Country: A DoctorÕs Story, in 1994
(Klass 21). The book was highly acclaimed and nominated for the National
Book Critics Circle Award.
My Own Country
In
My Own Country, Verghese describes the emergence of AIDS in Johnson
City, Tennessee. Largely autobiographical, the book intertwines the
lives of his patients and his own struggles between his personal and professional
life. The story begins as sons are returning from the big city infected
with AIDS, and families are forced to confront their childrenÕs
homosexuality. At the same time, Verghese realizes his ignorance toward
the life-styles of his patients. He works hard at removing any boundaries
between himself and his patients by visiting withthem, drinking iced tea
on the porch of their trailer home, or traveling to the families of his
patients to hear their stories. The reader is left with the images
of people caught in the struggle of AIDS, not stereotyped views of society.
Verghese's discussion in the book leaves few stones unturned. He
uses his book to discuss the flaws in current health care delivery, the
victimization of patients, the role of privacy and confidentiality between
doctors and patients, ignorance and prejudice, and being foreign in America.
The transformation Verghese chronicles with the emergence of AIDS is closely
tied to an awakening toward his own identity. His understanding
and conviction offers a unique contribution to the heritage of sub-continental
literature.
Major Issues: Identity
My Own Country organizes itself around the
issue of identity. It represents Verghese's life-long struggle with
his own identity. In America, foreign implies another "homeland,"
an ethnic home to which one can return. Verghese struggles between
multiple worlds. On the revolution in Ethiopia, he says, "It
was a terrible feeling, being labeled an expatriate in your own country"
(Holley 48). Verghese's Ethiopian birth, Indian descent, and Christian
faith create a complex identity. He confronts these "worlds"
in his text. The migration of Indians from India to Africa is told
through the story of his parents. This story continues in "the
next wave on to Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, London...and even Johnson
City, Tennessee" (Verghese 16). Verghese connects to this tradition
of displacement and migration, but does not find a sense of community there.
Among the Indian families in Johnson City, Verghese is an "outsider."
He refuses the financial success that lies at the "root of the hierarchy"
(205), and finds joy in being a "hero of sorts" (206) amongst
the children. Within the larger community, Verghese is aware of his
status as a "foreign doctor." However, his anger
is directed against his fellow professionals, not the community:
"Sometimes I felt that I was accepted only as long as they [medical
community] needed me, as long as I could be of service to them"
(308). In such explorations, he shows what it means to be at once a skilled
professional and ethnic or racial outsider in a closely knit community,
town or profession.
My Own Country also describes the identities of those suffering
with AIDS. Verghese explores how easy it is for society to give a
disease an identity, but it is impossible for those affected by the disease
to refuse that identity. In Johnson City, as in many
places at the outset of theAIDS crisis, homosexuals were seen as "deserving"
AIDS, while others are described as "innocent victims."
In the book, one Will Johnson contracts AIDS from a blood transfusion and
passes it on to his wife, Bess. His struggle to keep his condition
a secret from his community, friends, and family illustrates how "They
[Will and Bess] believed the ugly metaphors of AIDS: AIDS = gay,
AIDS = sin. They could not get past what it seemed to imply about
lifestyle and morality" (291). Will and Bess had so deeply
internalized what society said it meant to have AIDS, that they could not
see that they were in a position to dispel the myth, and their story illustrates
ways in which identity is formed as much from the (mis-)conceptions of
others as it is a matter of individuals coming to terms with themselves.
Narrative and Otherness
The power of telling a story is central to Verghese's
relation to his patients. A story can serve to either save an individual's
dignity or deny them their right to it. The stories Verghese extracts
from his patients are integral to his ability to treat them. Verghese
sees this process as a lost art in Medicine. The necessity to perform
a billable procedure overrides the ability to hear the story the patient
is telling and the disease they are experiencing. In this process, Verghese
extracts something therapeutic from narrative and blends his roles as author
and doctor. In a sense, we come to learn in My Own Country how stories
get woven together, as his patients' stories become part of the fabric
of Verghese's life, and what he gains, either professionally or personally,
from listening to others' stories in the process of telling his own. Stories,
then, become an ethical concern of understanding oneself as well as others.
Verghese represents the "other" in many ways. He is the
"other" doctor, foreign and from another place. People
can trust him because he does not have the face of a minister, father,
or social authority. Verghese is also made an "other" by
the way he practices medicine. His eagerness to work with AIDS patients
and the care and time he puts into each individual, makes him an "other"
to the rest of the medical community. Finally, there is his personal
"otherness." Verghese is absent of a home, or a place to
identify himself. It is Frank's question which concerns Verghese:
"What is 'home' but a place without Otherness, where all are part
of the One?" (58).
Further Discussion
If one wishes to follow up on these themes, the Vintage
On-line Discussion group has an excellent page of questions related
to the book. These can serve as an interesting follow-up to reading
the text.
Other Publications
Dr. Verghese has published articles and stories
in magazines like The New Yorker, Granta, The North American
Review, Sports Illustrated, and Story. Full-text
citations are provided in the bibliography at the bottom of the page.
"March
25th": A short story by Verghese, published in the Texas
WriterÕs Month, March, 1996 issue.
"The
Cowpath to America": This story is featured in the New YorkerÕs
issue on sub-continental writers. It is a personal history which
looks at medicine in India and America. The on-line copy is abridged.
"Last Acts": VergheseÕs most recent story published
in The New Yorker, September, 1997.
"All is the Same": Published in The North American Review
in September 1993.
"Lilacs": VergheseÕs first article published in The
New Yorker, October, 1991.
"In Graceland": Published is The North American Review
in March, 1989. This is a story about drug addiction and the transmission
of disease.
Further information and critical writings
Please refer to the selected bibliography for more
critical writing and reviews on Verghese not available on-line.
Texas Writer's
Month: Brief Biography of Verghese in monthly magazine.
Vintage
Books Reading Groups Guide: PublisherÕs biography of Verghese.
Daily
Illini On-line: Book Review in the University of Illinois student newpaper.
INDOlink:
Verghese page in an on-line guide to Indian authors and issues.
Bibliography
Holley, Joe. "The Doctor Is In." Texas Monthly
. June 1997: 48-53.
Klass, Perri. "AIDS in the Heartland." The
New York Times Book Review. 28 Aug. 1994: 1-21.
Frank, Arthur W. "Cancer in the Community: Class and Medical
Authority." Second Opinion July 1995: 53-59.
Verghese, Abraham. Interview. All Things Considered.
Natl. Public Radio. 16 May 1994.
---. "All is Same." The North American Review.
Sep. 1993: 38-44.
---. "The Cowpath to America." The New Yorker
23-30 June 1997: 70-88.
---. "In Graceland." The North American Review
Mar. 1989: 40-42.
---. "Last Acts." The New Yorker 22 Sep.
1997: 76-89.
---. "Lilacs." The New Yorker. 14
Oct. 1991: 53-58.
---. "March 25th." Texas Monthly March
1996.
---. My Own Country. New York: Vintage , 1994.
"Verghese, Abraham 1955- " Contemporary Authors on CD.
CD-ROM. Gale Research Inc., 1997.
Author: Nishu Shah, Spring '98.
Please feel free to send me any comment or feedback related to the contents
of this web page at nshah@emory.edu
Links
within this site
Postcolonial Studies at Emory
(Image of an "Homme Carrefour" from Donald J.
Cosentino's Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou [Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler
Museum of Cultural History, 1995].)
