The Tennis Partner

Abraham Verghese is best known as a novelist, writing epics such as Cutting for Stone. He is also a physician, and medicine plays a large part in his fiction. The Tennis Partner is different: it is a frank memoir about a very difficult period in his life. It is about himself as a professor of internal medicine and one of his students who shared his love of tennis. At work, Verghese was the master; on the tennis court, the student was the master. As a psychiatrist, I admire the way Verghese tells us about his journey in both roles, his… show more.

Dr. Verghese, an African-born Indian internal medicine doctor, is famous for The Covenant of Water, selected by Oprah’s Book Club, but I am pulled back to his harrowing second book, The Tennis Partner. I enjoyed his gripping patient case histories while practicing in a Texas border town, but his focus is on his tennis games with his intern, David Smith, a former Australian tennis pro.

With each spirited rally, Verghese rebounds from life in the hospital and marital fatigue. While there is little talk of his unraveling marriage, I am intrigued by how their friendship deepens when they confide… show more.

Let me just come right out and say it: this is a sad book. It’s a tragedy – like The Great Gatsby, Abraham plays the role of the narrator Nick Carraway while David Smith, an Australian doctor, becomes his unfortunate Jay Gatsby. The man is troubled (substance addiction), but what brings the two men born generations apart is the game of, you guessed it, tennis. (Sorry to disappoint, but not porn – though there is some sexual compulsion, so maybe a tiny bit?) What is most impressive about this work is Abraham’s restraint. There’s some high drama here, but he… show more.