Caroline Knapp
Wise and compassionate...Verghese is a fine writer, lyrical and controlled.... In his search to understand what happened to his friend, Verghese also touches upon more universal truths. -- New York Times
Pico Iyer
The Tennis Partner. . .becomes an anguished case history about. . .one person. . .destroying himself with addiction, and another [getting] addicted to trying to help him. . . .at its core his is a brave and heart-baring story about how even a teacher of internal medicine could not see inside the person closest to him.
Time
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
In his eloquent memoir, My Own Country, Verghese described a parallel story, that of a stranger (himself) and AIDS both becoming part of a rural Tennessee town. Once again, Verghese weaves his own story with that of a place and another person to come up with something moving and insightful. As he tries to cope with a new job on the faculty of Texas Tech School of Medicine, the move to El Paso and the breakdown of his marriage, he meets David, a medical student and former tennis pro. Tennis matches with David reawaken Verghese's passion for the game, and soon the two become regular partners. Their connection is complicated by their shifting roles: Verghese, David's teacher in the hospital wards, becomes his student on the tennis court. For Verghese, the matches offer an escape from loneliness; for David, a recovering drug addict, even more is at stake. Only on the court can they reach a state of grace: "our tennis partnership was special, different, sacred like a marriage." Ultimately, as David's life takes some disturbing turns, Verghese finds himself forced to choose between his role as friend and that of authority figure. While David's story provides the main narrative drive of the book, it's interwoven with Verghese's descriptions of his AIDS patients, his relationship with his sons and meditations on El Paso's distinctive landscape. It's a hard trick but Verghese combines all these elements into a cohesive whole, moving easily between moments of quiet reflection and anxious anticipation. If, as he writes, "to tell a life story [is] to engage in a form of seduction," then Verghese is a master of romance.
Library Journal
Following his sympathetic treatment of AIDS patients in the celebrated My Own Country, one of Library Journal's Best Books of 1994, Verghese offers this study of a doctor friend (and tennis partner) whose life is ruined by drugs.
Kirkus Reviews
The acclaimed author of My Own Country (1996) turns his gaze inward to a pair of crises that hit even closer to home than the AIDS epidemic of which he wrote previously. Verghese took a teaching position at Texas Tech's medical school, and it's his arrival in the unfamiliar city of El Paso that triggers the events of his second book (parts of which appeared in The New Yorker). His marriage, already on the rocks in My Own Country, has collapsed utterly and the couple agree to a separation. In a new job in a new city, he finds himself more alone than he has ever been. But he becomes acquainted with a charming fourth-year student on his rotation, David, a former professional tennis player from Australia.
Verghese, an ardent amateur himself, begins to play regularly with David and the two become close friends, indeed deeply dependent on one another. Gradually, the younger man begins to confide in his teacher and friend. David has a secret, known to most of the other students and staff at the teaching hospital but not to the recently arrived Verghese; he is a recovering drug addict whose presence at Tech is only possible if he maintains a rigorous schedule of AA meetings and urine tests. When David relapses and his life begins to spiral out of control, Verghese finds himself drawn into the young man's troubles. As in his previous book, Verghese distinguishes himself by virtue not only of tremendous writing skillhe has a talented diagnostician's observant eye and a gift for descriptionbut also by his great humanity and humility. Verghese manages to recount the story of the failure of his marriage without recriminations and with a remarkable evenhandedness.Likewise, he tells David's story honestly and movingly. Although it runs down a little in the last 50 pages or so, this is a compulsively readable and painful book, a work of compassion and intelligence.
From the Publisher
Heartbreaking. . . . Indelible and haunting, [The Tennis Partner] is an elegy to friendship found, and an ode to a good friend lost.” — The Boston Globe
“Verghese is a fine writer, lyrical and controlled, and he captures the attachment between the two menits motives, its allurewith both precision and charm. . . . Wise and compassionate.” — New York Times Book Review
“Verghese writes with such searching lucidity and is so attentive and engaging a figure that he could hold us just by describing his drives around town. . . . At its core his is a brave and heart-baring story about how even a teacher of internal medicine could not see inside the person closest to him. . . . It will speak to anyone who has looked with his heart instead of his eyes.” — Time
“Despite the poignancy of the subject matter . . . Verghese’s telling of it never gets heavy-handed. Instead, he uses his bedside voice: caring, but also slightly detached and startlingly frank.” — New York
“Poignant. . . . The metaphors that underlie tennis permeate the book and give The Tennis Partner. . . . a power that resonates well beyond its topical interest.” — Chicago Tribune
“Gripping. . . . moving. . . . Verghese shows himself to be a thoughtful and honest navigator through life. His pain . . . is impossible not to share.” — Detroit Free Press
“[Verghese] displays perfect pitch in this emotionally charged tale. . . . Readers . . . will be enthralled by his sleuthing into the human heart.” — Entertainment Weekly
“A tale of luminescent humanity. . . . It goes deeper than any book I have ever read to put its finger on the pulse of what friendship truly means. It is a book for everyone of us who has deeply loved and mourned the fragile, ever-changing nature of caring, with its inherent need to ultimately let go. A brave and honest book, The Tennis Partner, haunts and empowers with each volley.” — Denise Chavez, author of Face of an Angel
“This is a knockout book. Beautifully written, it broke my heart and made me happy all at the same time. I loved Verghese’s My Own Country and this even ups the ante—more intense, even closer to the edge.” — Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones
“With writerly grace, Verghese introduces us to the disciplines he holds sacred: tennis, internal medicine, fatherhood, male friendship. Everywhere he is a diagnostician, a teacher, a lover of physical presence. But finally as he walks the back alleys of El Paso searching for his drug-abusing colleague, we understand who Verghese is at his core, a man of honor who goes down mean streets and remains himself good enough for any world. This is an extraordinary book.” — Peter D. Kramer, author of Listening to Prozac
Time
Verghese writes with such searching lucidity and is so attentive and engaging a figure that he could hold us just by describing his drives around town. . . . At its core his is a brave and heart-baring story about how even a teacher of internal medicine could not see inside the person closest to him. . . . It will speak to anyone who has looked with his heart instead of his eyes.
Detroit Free Press
Gripping. . . . moving. . . . Verghese shows himself to be a thoughtful and honest navigator through life. His pain . . . is impossible not to share.
Chicago Tribune
Poignant. . . . The metaphors that underlie tennis permeate the book and give The Tennis Partner. . . . a power that resonates well beyond its topical interest.
Natalie Goldberg
This is a knockout book. Beautifully written, it broke my heart and made me happy all at the same time. I loved Verghese’s My Own Country and this even ups the ante—more intense, even closer to the edge.
The Boston Globe
Heartbreaking. . . . Indelible and haunting, [The Tennis Partner] is an elegy to friendship found, and an ode to a good friend lost.
Peter D. Kramer
With writerly grace, Verghese introduces us to the disciplines he holds sacred: tennis, internal medicine, fatherhood, male friendship. Everywhere he is a diagnostician, a teacher, a lover of physical presence. But finally as he walks the back alleys of El Paso searching for his drug-abusing colleague, we understand who Verghese is at his core, a man of honor who goes down mean streets and remains himself good enough for any world. This is an extraordinary book.
Denise Chavez
A tale of luminescent humanity. . . . It goes deeper than any book I have ever read to put its finger on the pulse of what friendship truly means. It is a book for everyone of us who has deeply loved and mourned the fragile, ever-changing nature of caring, with its inherent need to ultimately let go. A brave and honest book, The Tennis Partner, haunts and empowers with each volley.
Entertainment Weekly
[Verghese] displays perfect pitch in this emotionally charged tale. . . . Readers . . . will be enthralled by his sleuthing into the human heart.
New York Times Book Review
Verghese is a fine writer, lyrical and controlled, and he captures the attachment between the two menits motives, its allurewith both precision and charm. . . . Wise and compassionate.
New York
Despite the poignancy of the subject matter . . . Verghese’s telling of it never gets heavy-handed. Instead, he uses his bedside voice: caring, but also slightly detached and startlingly frank.