Oprah Winfrey Endorses Abraham Verghese’s ‘The Covenant of Water’ as Reviews Heap Praise on Epic Indian Novel

It is not often that book reviewers relate to the subject of the book as much as they do about the author itself. Abraham Verghese is one of those rare authors whom literary critics tend to conflate the story of the author himself with the plot of the book. Writing almost poignantly about both, Andrew Solomon discusses Verghese himself as much as his latest novel, “The Covenant of Water.”

Reviewing in the New York Times, Solomon reflects on Verghese’s background as an Indian born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and raised in India and the U.S.; a doctor by profession who ends up as a luminous writer of fiction and nonfiction, and connects his life to the plot of the book. Like Verghese’s story itself, he says, the book is about a family set in Kerala that “loves and suffers in a cavalcade of ways.”

“His new novel,” Solomon says, “focuses almost entirely on good people (to whom many terrible things happen), and given the complexity of human beings, the surfeit of grace sometimes feels unrealistic and even pretentious, as though the writer is affiliating himself with standards that ordinary humans cannot attain.”

Like many of his books, “Covenant” too is about suffering. Verghese is perhaps best known for his memoir, “My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story,” which was published in 1994. The book tells the story of Verghese’s experience treating AIDS patients in rural Tennessee during the early days of the epidemic. The memoir received critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Similarly, his first novel published in 2009, “Cutting for Stone,” tells the story of twin brothers born to an Indian nun and a British surgeon in Ethiopia. The novel was an international bestseller and has been translated into over 30 languages. “Cutting for Stone” was also a finalist for several literary awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Verghese is currently a Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine. 

Verghese’s writing is characterized by his deep knowledge of medicine and his empathy for his patients. He can convey complex medical concepts in a way that is accessible to the layperson, and his descriptions of illness and disease are both informative and moving. Verghese’s writing also explores themes of identity, family, and the immigrant experience.

Even though ‘The Covenant’ is not in the same literary league as Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy,” Jumps Lahiri’s “The Namesake” or Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things,” Solomon confesses in the Times saying, “I would happily spend months on end with it and I cried when it was done.”

His latest novel, described by the Times as “grand, spectacular, sweeping and utterly absorbing,” has also been endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, who selected it this week as her newest book club pick.

After announcing it on “CBS Mornings” this Tuesday, Winfrey said in a press release, “This is a novel of epic proportions that takes us through love, loss, family secrets and global history. The scope of this novel is truly breathtaking, and I couldn’t put the book down until the very last page.” 

The novel, which spans from 1900 to 1977 and follows three generations of a family, is expected to be as successful as his “Cutting for Stone,” which has “captivated over 1.5 million readers in the United States alone and remained on The New York Times Best Sellers list for more than two years.”

In a personal note to advance readers, Verghese reportedly wrote that his late mother, Mariam, “was an incredible storyteller” who “wrote a forty-page manuscript” in response to a grandchild’s query about her life. Drawing some of those stories in his novel, dedicates the book, a 10-year labor of love (another report said it was 18 years), to his mother.

In her review in The Washington Post, Joan Frank says the novel “reads like a lavish smorgasbord of genealogy, medicine and love affairs, tracing a family’s evolution from 1900 through the 1970s, in pointillist detail. The family’s dark secret? “In every generation … at least one member has drowned unexpectedly” — even though those who sense they’re afflicted with “The Condition” try their utmost never to get wet.”

Even though ‘The Covenant’ is not in the same literary league as Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy,” Jumps Lahiri’s “The Namesake” or Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things,” Solomon confesses in the Times saying, “I would happily spend months on end with it and I cried when it was done.”

Similarly, even if it does not “present the dark and fantastical complexity of India limned by Salman Rushdie in ‘Midnight’s Children,’ he says, “The Covenant” will expose people without much connection to South Asian culture to beauties to which they might otherwise not have access.” More pertinently, he says, “In a period of divisiveness, racism and anti-Asian hate, that is as important an accomplishment as changing our understanding of what fiction can do, or explaining how the world’s largest democracy came to elect Narendra Modi, or delving into the anti-Islamic face of Hindu nationalism.”

“What binds and drives this vast, intricate history as it patiently unspools are vibrant characters, sensuous detail and an intimate tour of cultures, landscapes and mores across eras,” The Post review says, adding, “Verghese’s compassion for his ensemble, which subtly multiplies, infuses every page. So does his ability to inhabit a carousel of sensibilities — including those of myriad women — with penetrating insight and empathy.” 

“We would also do well to consider ‘Covenant,’ writes Jenny Bhatt in NPR “as part of the Indian novel in English lineage that includes literary greats like Raja Rao, K Nagarajan, O V Vijayan, and R K Narayan. Like the unforgettable rural South Indian worlds those authors bestowed upon us with places like Kanthapura, Kedaram, Khasak, and Malgudi, respectively, Verghese has given us Parambil, a water-filled, near-mythical dreamscape in Kerala.”

Bad news: the novel’s elephantine 2-plus pounds and 715 pages will task the wrists of the reader, says Bhatt.