The Tennis Partner (P.S.)
 Regular Price: $14.99 | |
Dear visitor! This website has been designed to help you find THE BEST PRICE. When you are ready to buy, your payment will be processed through one of the most TRUSTED SUPPLIERS directly. |
| Not what you're looking for? Try smart custom search: |
Customer Review
Poignant, memorable and incredibly honest.
I just finished a cathartic 15 minute shed of tears. The Tennis Partner took over my life for nearly two full days. I was unable to put it down and afraid to read on at the same time. I was moved by the friendship that blossomed from one main commonality, a love for the game. Dr. Verghese's observations about life, his analogies between tennis and medicine spoke volumes to me. I am neither a tennis player nor a physician, but as a compassionate and feeling person I related to the story and I have been changed. It took tremendous courage for Dr. Verghese to write David's story and to express how it made him feel as a physician, a man, a tennis player, a father and most of all as a friend. As an Arizonan I have a love and a deep respect for the desert. This book may help others to appreciate and fear the desert for its natural beauty and its well-kept secrets. If for no other reason, read the book to grow and challenge yourself. Dr. Verghese's writing style is thoughtful...
Top to learn more
Simply but Eloquently Written - a Gift
This book moved me as few others have, in part because of the story itself, but mostly by the beautiful, honest and unadorned way it is written. Abraham Verghese opens his lonely soul without pretense or fanfare: unusual for a man, rarer still for a physician. I have worked with physicians and am close to one. Many of the emotions Verghese describes as he cares for his patients I long suspected physicians experienced, but was never certain. Physicians don't wax poetically to non-physicians over the feeling of a pulse or the percussion of an abdomen, fearful it might diminish them. They certainly don't expose their vulnerability or need for friendship as plainly as Verghese does. Despite their skills and accomplishments, both Verghese and Smith remain very much affected by their childhoods and by their insecurities. They are lost souls. Ultimately, Verghese finds his way back while David is lost forever. It is Verghese's sensitive description of this story that captures...
Top to learn more
A Powerful Story of Searching and Harsh Truths
Having been personally trained by Dr. Verghese, I can say that his talent is truly remarkable. It is rather interesting how he describes all the events and scenes of El Paso so vividly and true, that when you are actually at the many locations in the book, one can recall and relay the exact details he describes in The Tennis Partner. He is very poetic, with an incredibly eloquent touch of deepness in his writing. With his worldly experiences as well as his vast knowledge of medicine, Dr. Verghese truly treats his patients with 'culture and sensitivity.' Some may say that I am biased for having known him, but if you could meet him and actually be trained by him, you would be able to see his incredible compassion for his patients, his students, medicine, writing, and the world itself. Very admirable.
Top to learn more
Product Description
An unforgettable, illuminating story of how men live and how they survive, from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Cutting for Stone
When Abraham Verghese, a physician whose marriage is unraveling, relocates to El Paso, Texas, he hopes to make a fresh start as a staff member at the county hospital. There he meets David Smith, a medical student recovering from drug addiction, and the two men begin a tennis ritual that allows them to shed their inhibitions and find security in the sport they love and with each other. This friendship between doctor and intern grows increasingly rich and complex, more intimate than two men usually allow. Just when it seems nothing can go wrong, the dark beast from David’s past emerges once again—and almost everything Verghese has come to trust and believe in is threatened as David spirals out of control.
Top to learn moreWhat is it about sports that makes some men wax as mystical as a Castanedan Yaqui? In the hands of writers such as David James Duncan and Norman Maclean, the simple, repetitive motions of baseball, fly-fishing, and golf have acquired almost numinous significance. In The Tennis Partner, Dr. Abraham Verghese takes on his own fascination with tennis and comes up with as good an explanation as any: "In the way we controlled the movement of a yellow ball in space, we were imposing order on a world that was fickle and capricious. Each ball that we put into play, for as long as it went back and forth between us, felt like a charm to be added to a necklace full of spells, talismans, and fetishes, which one day add up to an Aaron's rod, an Aladdin's lamp, a magic carpet. Each time we played, this feeling of restoring order, of mastery, was awakened."
For both Verghese and his tennis partner, a fourth-year medical student named David Smith, the game is a much-needed island of order in the midst of personal chaos. Both men are struggling to rebuild their lives, Verghese undergoing a painful divorce, Smith struggling with an intravenous cocaine addiction. For a brief, idyllic period, their friendship flourishes; Verghese mentors Smith in the examining room, while Smith, an Australian who competed briefly on the pro circuit, ends up Verghese's teacher on the court. But there are dark corners to David's personality, and under the mounting pressures of medical school and his increasingly complicated love life, these come to the fore. Even as he learns how to inhabit his new life, Verghese watches with horror as his friend relapses, dries out, then relapses again. The author of the powerful My Own Country, a chronicle of caring for AIDS patients in rural Tennessee, Verghese once again proves that the skills of a good doctor are strikingly similar to those of a good writer. Careful observation, compassion, restraint: these are the instruments Verghese uses to stunning effect in The Tennis Partner. A paean to the healing powers of tennis, this book is also a moving meditation on friendship, fatherhood, love, addiction, and the particular loneliness of physicians. --Mary Park Top to learn more
A good supplement to the real thing