''The Tennis Partner'' is the second of

Abraham Verghese Abraham Verghese (born May 30, 1955) is a Malayali-American physician and author, who was born in Ethiopia. He is the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor of Medicine, Vice Chair for the Theory & Practice of Medicine, and Intern ...

's books. Published in 1999, when he was a

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

practicing

internal medicine Internal medicine, also known as general medicine in Commonwealth nations, is a medical specialty for medical doctors focused on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases in adults. Its namesake stems from "treatment of diseases of ...

El Paso El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, this is an

autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...

memoir, and Abraham Verghese writes of his experience moving to El Paso in the midst of an unraveling marriage. Once there, he meets and eventually becomes a mentor to David Smith, a medical resident at the hospital where Verghese worked and a brilliant tennis player recovering from drug addiction. Because of his own love for the game and as part of his effort to reach out to the troubled resident, Verghese begins to play singles tennis regularly during their free time outside the hospital. What starts as a casual game between the two men eventually develops into a complex ritual that allows them to develop a deep friendship and understanding of the pressures they each face. In the hospital, Verghese is the teacher and Smith the student. On the court, however, Smith, the one-time professional player, becomes the teacher. The story tells of their all too brief friendship as Smith battles and eventually succumbs to his disease, and Verghese's helpless attempts to intervene. While cited as fiction, ''The Tennis Partner'' is heavily autobiographical. In 2019, it was ranked by ''Slate'' as one of the 50 greatest nonfiction books of the past 25 years.

References

1999 American novels Medical books American autobiographical novels Novels set in Texas Culture of El Paso, Texas Indian-American culture Indian-American culture in Texas Fiction about Indian diaspora Novels set in El Paso, Texas {{1990s-autobio-novel-stub