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Summary: I haven't loved a book this much in a long time.
Review: Above all, Abraham Verghese is an excellent writer!! He tells the story of a unique epoch in history, when AIDS was new. It is a testament to his skills, both as a writer and as a doctor, that he is able to tell such a sad story with such beauty and such grace. This is excellent and important reading.
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Summary: riveting, intense and extremely truthful
Review: Dr. Abraham Verghese is literature's loss and medicine's gain. As my like-minded friends said, he should have been a writer. Written in an intensely personal, lucid and beautifully structured style, the book unfolds everything associated with a new disease like AIDS and the trauma of the people and society affected by it. He is an outstanding counsellor, a superlative medical practitioner and a terrific writer. He is truthful, honest and stylish. Hailing from his homestate, Kerala, and living in the city (Madras) where he used to move around in an old Java motorbike at least for a while, I am so sad that a genuine book like his did not get the recognition or publicity (good or bad,that's another issue) cornered by Arundhthi Roy. In comparison to the Malayalam writers, whose milieu Ms. Roy shares in her book, God of Small Things is absolute trash. But My Own Country is a gem. It is genuine, honest and a beautiful piece of art.
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Summary: Grateful for the response to this book
Review: Word-of-mouth, for which I am very grateful, has been at the heart of the book's dissemination among readers. Shooting of the movie, directed by Mira Nair, has been completed and it should be on SHOWTIME in June 98
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Summary: AIDS has a face
Review: If there ever was doubt about the human side of the AIDS virus, My Own Country by Abraham Verghese will put this to rest. Written in an intensely personal way, Dr. Verghese shares the stories of his first AIDS patients in rural Johnson City, Tennessee. These patients include an older man who contacts the virus from a blood transfusion at Duke during open heart surgery, to a truck driver whose lonely rondevous at the local truck stop comes back to haunt him and his family. These patient's hopes, dreams, fears and ultimately their deaths live in Dr. Verghese's prose. He paints a picture of life and death with AIDS that crosses lines of class, race, sexuality and should strike remorse into the heart of anyone who believes that AIDS is the scourge of "queers and other social degenerates." God help us all
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Summary: A compelling journey into the heart of the AIDS epidemic.
Review: Few books can transport the lay reader into the center of an epidemic with such honesty, compassion and intelligence as MY OWN COUNTRY. As a specialist in infectious diseases, Dr. Verghese describes the unexpected and insidious advance of the HIV virus into a small Tennessee town. By taking us into the hearts and homes of the victims and their families, he paints an unforgettable portrait of the emotional and physical impact of this epidemic while helping us to understand the intricacies of the many ways AIDS attacks the body andd mind of its victims. More than their physician, Dr. Verghese becomes friend, confidant and healer of both body and spirit to his patients and their loved ones. With painful candor, he also details the terrible personal price he and his family are forced to pay because of his dedication. While displaying both grace and compassion, Dr. Verghese surprises the reader with his talent for lyrical description and his ability to see beyond the technical perimeters
Rating: 
Summary: Almost too long to be effective.
Review: My Own Country is a tough book to read. There are so many stories of people struggling to live in the early years before there were any treatments to make living with HIV at all possible. There's also the growing despair of the author as he sees the disease spreading through his rural town and of course across the globe and not having anything he can do beyond diagnosing the disease and treating the opportunistic diseases that attack his patients.By about page 250 I began to grow numb from the overload off all the personal stories. The book as well begins to ramble a bit but I can fully understand why Dr. Verghese chose to leave for a less stressful job.
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Summary: A Wonderful Medical Drama
Review: There is out there a growing field of medical fiction; that is, books authored by literature doctors about their patients' stories. This is a compelling read about AIDS in an East Tennessee town, one where the doctor knows he's not God, and in many ways, is just as confused as his AIDS patients. We at once see a country grappling with how to handle an epidemic, a town trying to overcome their phobias, and a doctor trying to make a difference while balancing his work and his family.
Dr. Verghese writes with finese and does not miss a beat. This is a true novel, compelling through and through, and raises important themes about finding your place in the world and alternatives to the elusive American dream. Do not miss this fantastic piece of medical literature.
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Summary: Chronicling the transformative power of both fear and love
Review: My Own Country : A Doctor's Story by ABRAHAM VERGHESE ostensibly chronicles the appearance of AIDS in the rural burgh of Johnson City, TN in the mid 80's, and in fact the book does chronicle that event. However, this book is far less about AIDS than it is about the human condition in general and, more specifically, the transformative powers of both fear and love.
I had previously read Dr. Verghese's The Tennis Partner, an excellent book that shares some critical threads with this effort. In both books Verghese, an Indian from India, effectively portrays both the problems as benefits associated with being a foreign doctor in America--the former being the prejudices that accrue to those who had the perceived misfortune to be born in the third world and the freedom that being an "outsider" brought to the patient-doctor relationship.
The Tennis partner was a fictional work with obvious significant autobiographical undertones. This book is clearly an autobiographical work of nonfiction that benefits considerably from Verghese's previous work within a fictional realm. Verghese writes very well and he uses his quite considerable talents to render a moving, suspenseful and insightful book.
These being a medical autobiography, a fair amount of fairly detailed, turgid technical aspects are a part of the package. That is the only genuine criticism I can make. Other than that, the book is a fascinating, engaging, highly moving account of human misery, death and, ultimately, triumph.
This is one of the best books I've read this year. Definitely a 5 star effort.
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Summary: A compassionate doctor confronts the HIV epidemic
Review: As a doctor, I rarely enjoy books about physicians because they simply don't show the reality of our lives.
Unlike the soap opera sexuality and black humor (and ridicule) in many medical best sellers, Dr. Verghese writes a the simple tale of a doctor and his patients, told with quiet compassion and an eye for the small details of human experience.
He tells of the daily fight to keep people alive. And he tells the story of how ordinary Americans confront this new disease with courage.
Too often, Southern Americans are portrayed as bigoted religious homophobes by the literati. His stories of how the close knit families confront and accept their dying sons and husbands.
And he tells of the common --but rarely discussed-- story of immigrants. This a story I see in my own family, where one person comes, and then is joined by friends and family, and soon a thriving immigrant community invigorates the small towns of middle America.
Finally, he shows the strains of practicing medicine in the context of a daily life.
Most of the reviews paint this as a book about HIV, and it is.
But it is a book about families, about culture, and especially about the life of ordinary physicians who daily confront the struggle against sickness and mortality.
I would recommend it to anyone thinking of joining the medical profession.
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Summary: My Own Country, my home town.
Review: This book is an amazing way to discover the hardships that those must over come who are diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. I am from Johnson City, TN. As a part of a clinical I was doing in high school we were given many options of books to read for a grade, this was one. I was drawn to it because hey, this was my home town. But what I got from this book overcame everything I had expected. I wept reading this book. It is amazing how you get to know Dr. Verghese and his patients. You, in a way, experience their hardships and triumps, even the families loss. He explains word for word the exhausting battle of finding out and forming a plan of action. He puts you into the realization of these individuals and what they felt. You begin to morn their loosing battles and celebrate in their strength in recovery. He discribes this area of Tennessee with such effortless ease. It's beauty struck with something so horrid. Reading the book I forgot that this was my home, the people in it were people of my town. For a nieve high school student it made me realize that no matter what the year was this was real and it was here in my own back yard. "My Own Country." I learned more than just about the people or about the land but the medical terminology was explained and he made you the reader understand what it meant to him and the world of medicine. Each detail will make you feel like you are right there in the ER of the "Miracle Center". There were times I just could not put this book down. I have read it three times now and I am starting my fourth. The stories in this book of the patients are tragic. Anyone who has any type of preconceived notion of what it is like to have AIDS/HIV or what "kind of people" have AIDS/HIV should read this book. It will open your eyes to a whole new world. This story of our small town, as it was then, has reached all over the world. It has inspired and educated everyone who has read it. I'm sure that it still means a great deal to the families of those in it. AIDS will always be scary, it will always be something that will cause pain and horror to our ears, this book describes a small town with prejudice of it's own before a time of AIDS and how it conforms to another way of thinking. Just like in this book, not everyone will ever be accepting of those who contract this disease but everyone will be made aware of it. I suggest this book to any reader with any reading taste. You will walk away with much more than what you came with. You will get to know our people and their stories from the mind of a man who knew them all. Abraham Verghese was brilliant in writing this collection of lives on paper. Thank you Dr. Verghese for letting their voices be heard all over the world and inspiring those who take time to indulge in your brilliance.
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