The Tennis Partner

PFS Book Club --- 28th Sept 24 We reviewed Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese on 28th September. This book explores theme of friendship, addiction, loss and healing. The book highlights Verghese’s insights as a physician and his personal reflections on the limits of medicine when faced with human frailty. The book is a moving and intimate portrayal of medical work and friendship. The story centers on Verghese’s relationship with David Smith, a former tennis pro and recovering drug addict, who becomes Verghese’s tennis partner and close friend. Both men are struggling in their own ways: Verghese is dealing with the aftermath of a painful divorce, while David battles a heroin addiction that threatens his medical career. Verghese acts as a mentor and guides David through difficult clinical problems in hospital. There is a mention on how Verghese practices journaling and benefits of the same. He draws parallel to Wimbledon match between Arthur Ashe and Jimmy Connors. Connors was rated favorite for the final and nobody gave any chance to Arthur. Arthur won the firsts two sets by 6-2 each and lost third set by 7-5. In fourth set he was down by 0-3 and then everybody saw that he was reading something from notes and after that he won that set by 6-4. He says that journalling slowly engraves your subconscious memory with so many learnings and knowledge that it becomes automatic on how you react to those situations when confronted again. We spoke about NLP as well on how Kohli said that how he plays whole match in mind before playing actual. David confides his addiction details to Verghese over coffee after their tennis matches, and once he is aware of David’s history, Verghese becomes aware that there is a contingent of medical students and hospital staff who deeply distrust David, who know about his previous lapses and seem to be waiting for him to use drugs again. Verghese becomes determined to counter these forces by helping David in any way he can. During his time as Verghese’s tennis partner, David falls in love with and then alienates two women as he struggles to control not only his drug addiction but his sex addiction as well. Most touching part of book was when Varghese was called on an autopsy table, and Verghese, his teacher and friend, is the one called to identify the body.

Loved it