Abraham Verghese is a physician and an author. I remember reading about this book and filed it away in my mind, hoping to read it. Finally got it and read all 700 plus pages of it.
The books spans three generations of a Christian Malayali family that is cursed with what they call a 'Condition'. The members of the family die by drowning in each generation and they feel it is a curse and do not talk of it. In fact they avoid water which is the best way to connect in the place where they live in Kerala and take all kinds of trouble to keep away - but still the condition finds it way. They have a family tree with a symbol for those who died by drowning.
The story begins with a 12 year old Mariamma marrying a 40 year old widower who needs a mother for his son. They somehow find ways to make love and produce a baby girl also and all seems well until the son dies by drowning. They have another boy together. So happens that when the widower dies Mariamma gets to run the property well and she does - its a 500 acre land she has to look after with help from a loyal servant.
Story shifts to Scotland where a young doctor finds the campus politics stifling and comes to Madras where he gets into an affair with his boss's wife. She dies in a fire and he burns his hands (literally) trying to save her. It means he cannot do surgery. Only when he meets another famous doctor who tries to rehabilitate him does he recover a bit. he also starts working in the leprosy hospital where the other doctor is working. He has an affair with another girl who comes to teach him to draw as part of his rehab (I think she is married then or she carries his child into her marriage). Obviously this guy is not to be trusted with married women.
The girl who teaches drawing to the Scottish doctor marries (or is married) to the son of Mariamma - he is a writer and she an artist. Their son Nina dies But their daughter (little Mariamma) lives on and becomes a doctor. No one notices that she has some Scottish blood in her for some reason and one day her mother disappears and is given up for dead. Turns out that little Dr Mariamma finds out that the 'Condition' is actually a medical condition and no curse. Also that her mother did not die but had contracted leprosy and had therefore left home and gone to the one man who is working in a leprosarium - the father of her child.
All's well and that ends well.
Too long. Somewhere I realised that this condition will have some medical consequences and finally did not stop to understand why the water angle came. But that's ok, they are dying and that's enough. All else happens. No character moved me, no relationship had great emotion. Digby seems dubious. Anyway, done! Thanks mate for the gift.
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