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Transplanted Man: A Novel
Serving a community of eccentric expatriates from India, rebellious medical resident Sonny Seth faces personal demons while being drawn into the world of one of his patients, a high-level Indian government official who is being hunted by assassins. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
4 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
Sanjay Nigam
22 books5 followersSanjay Nigam was born in India but moved to America with his family as an infant.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 23, 2021
Trzecia gwiazdka za postać Gwen i pieska Tanduri.
April 24, 2024
This book is centered around a hospital in New York’s “Little India” with the doctors, patients, and other workers as the characters. There are several themes in this book, primarily seems to be about sleep disturbances and relationship problems, but that is not all. Yet there is a lot of humor in the book as well, perhaps as taking life to an extreme, such as one of the first couples in the E.R. we meet is where the man took a severe bite on his wife’s buttocks. This bite, of course, does lead to problems in the marriage.
Sonny is a resident doctor, who sleepwalks, and has a healing touch. One of the main patients is a politician from India with so many transplanted organs he is known as the Transplant Man. Thus, we get the title of the book, but it is a double meaning, as most of the people are transplants from India.
We follow Sonny with a relationship with an English Indophile nurse, Gwen, who loves literature but found her calling with helping people instead. She has her own unknown illness which caused relationship issues before.
There are many characters in the book, seemingly follow them all, but it doesn’t become confusing as they are distinct enough and introduced slowly. The book doesn’t seem to have much of a plot itself, we just follow these characters and see what happens, much like a year in the life of type story. Everyone does have some transformations of sorts, so it is not static in any way. An entertaining book.
Sonny is a resident doctor, who sleepwalks, and has a healing touch. One of the main patients is a politician from India with so many transplanted organs he is known as the Transplant Man. Thus, we get the title of the book, but it is a double meaning, as most of the people are transplants from India.
We follow Sonny with a relationship with an English Indophile nurse, Gwen, who loves literature but found her calling with helping people instead. She has her own unknown illness which caused relationship issues before.
There are many characters in the book, seemingly follow them all, but it doesn’t become confusing as they are distinct enough and introduced slowly. The book doesn’t seem to have much of a plot itself, we just follow these characters and see what happens, much like a year in the life of type story. Everyone does have some transformations of sorts, so it is not static in any way. An entertaining book.
June 30, 2016
This is a terrific book. A larger than life Indian political figure with multiple transplanted body parts[heart, cornea, liver, etc] is sicker than ever and checks himself into a hospital in Little India in NYC with a large percentage of Indian staff and patients. His story intertwines with the mostly Indian neighborhood. The struggle of expats in America and Indian descendants in the US and their inextricable ties to the old country is well illuminated and humorously told. To gain a better insight on Indian culture, I would recommend this book.
February 9, 2025
Extrait de la 4eme de couverture : "à la fois drôle et profond.. [ce roman traite de] thèmes universels"
Oui, certainement.
Et pourtant, je ne suis pas emballée et j’ai un sentiment d’inaboutit.
On en croise du monde dans ce roman, on les voit traverser des épreuves mais en les quittant, leur évolution-s’ils en vivent une- n’a pas de sens défini. C’est un peu perturbant.
Oui, certainement.
Et pourtant, je ne suis pas emballée et j’ai un sentiment d’inaboutit.
On en croise du monde dans ce roman, on les voit traverser des épreuves mais en les quittant, leur évolution-s’ils en vivent une- n’a pas de sens défini. C’est un peu perturbant.
July 27, 2019
Compelling, bittersweet story. Indian characters are central, but the themes will resonate with most readers.
July 4, 2022
Worst book I’ve ever read.. author is clueless
November 8, 2021
The story, set in Manhattan, New York for the most part in a hospital which serves the community in an area known as Little India. Dr. Seth, or Sonny is a young resident physician who has the gift of healing. Unfortunately, he suffers from sleepwalking. Among his patients is a man everyone refers to as the Transplanted man because many of his organs have been replaced yet he survives. On medical leave, the Transplanted man is an Indian Minister of Health and Family Welfare. Sonny's other patients consists of Sonali whose husband Nishad took a bite out of her buttocks in a moment of passion while she slept, and a man who suffered from a heart attack but thanks to Sonny was revived. Unfortunately for him, both his wife and mistress hover over him waiting for him to recover. Others at the hospital are Dr. Ranjan a scientist who is attempting to discover a cure for insomnia, Alvin his assistant, Gwen Fielding, a British nurse, who is trying to control her sexual impulses, Dr. Menaka Bhusan, also a scientist, Ronny Chanchal, aging film star who dreams of becoming a politician, and the Hypokinetic man. No one knows where he comes from nor where he is going. Nigan includes an assortment of characters that people this novel with humor, poignancy, love, lust, aspirations and insight. A well-rounded novel which I thoroughly enjoyed.
May 8, 2012
There’s been a rather long tradition of medical people in literature. One thinks of William Carlos Williams, Anton Chekov, Daniel Mason (The Piano Tuner), and doubtless more that I don’t recall or don’t know about. Sanjay Nigan does not quite belong in that rank of the distinguished aforementioned, though there’s much to compliment about Transplanted Man.
The title operates on two levels. There is a character whom we know as Transplanted Man because he has had virtually every internal organ replaced over the years. The cause of his serial organ failure has not been discovered, but he has risen to such celebrity and success in Indian politics that there is never a thought of refusing or delaying the next replacement or stinting on his care. On the other level, the story is set in NYC’s Little India among people who have immigrated from India, whose relatives have immigrated from, or whose ancestry gives them a strong identity with India as their motherland. So, everyone in the book in some way, to some measure, has been transplanted from India to the USA. Thus, we have, obviously, a book about identity, about people struggling with how their geographic place on the planet coincides with their internal cultural and psychological map.
Our protagonist is a resident at a large NYC hospital who is a gifted practitioner but an emotionally stunted individual whose fatherless childhood and unaffectionate mother have left him paralyzed in the personal relationship department. The hospital becomes the site for the comings and goings of a large cast of screwy characters and situations that skim dangerously close to TV situation soaps such as Grey’s Anatomy and ER. There’s a man who bites his wife’s buttock while she’s sleeping. That makes for quite a relationship story. There’s also a man who for penance bites into his own tongue deep enough to require stitches.There’s the hoary situation of a man suffering a mid-coitus heart attack with his mistress. Wife and lover face and attack one another at the comatose philanderer’s bedside. There’s a completely original character called Hypokinetic Man, a guy who has a disorder that causes him literally to inch his way through life so slowly that one has to look closely to tell that he’s moving. His unapparent responses and silence make him a repository of a number of confessions. I suppose there’s some significance to the fact that the title character and this one are given titles a la comic book personages rather than real names. There’s also a guru, who becomes a guru despite himself because no one in the community will attend his real calling--that of a psychotherapist. It all amounts to a great setup, but I found the book rather unsatisfying in the end. Perhaps a clue to the reason might be Nigam’s statement in the acknowledgments that one Julia Serebrinsky somehow found a novel in the six-hundred plus pages of the small-type-narrow-margin manuscript he brought her. It has a feeling of disunity to me, as if someone picked a little here, a little there, montaged the thing and put it between covers. Yet, it seems that Publisher’s Weekly chose Transplanted Man as the best book of 2002. So who am I? Chopped curry, I guess. Nevertheless, here’s my first introduction of the little man and his reaction that sums up the 1000 or so words above.
The title operates on two levels. There is a character whom we know as Transplanted Man because he has had virtually every internal organ replaced over the years. The cause of his serial organ failure has not been discovered, but he has risen to such celebrity and success in Indian politics that there is never a thought of refusing or delaying the next replacement or stinting on his care. On the other level, the story is set in NYC’s Little India among people who have immigrated from India, whose relatives have immigrated from, or whose ancestry gives them a strong identity with India as their motherland. So, everyone in the book in some way, to some measure, has been transplanted from India to the USA. Thus, we have, obviously, a book about identity, about people struggling with how their geographic place on the planet coincides with their internal cultural and psychological map.
Our protagonist is a resident at a large NYC hospital who is a gifted practitioner but an emotionally stunted individual whose fatherless childhood and unaffectionate mother have left him paralyzed in the personal relationship department. The hospital becomes the site for the comings and goings of a large cast of screwy characters and situations that skim dangerously close to TV situation soaps such as Grey’s Anatomy and ER. There’s a man who bites his wife’s buttock while she’s sleeping. That makes for quite a relationship story. There’s also a man who for penance bites into his own tongue deep enough to require stitches.There’s the hoary situation of a man suffering a mid-coitus heart attack with his mistress. Wife and lover face and attack one another at the comatose philanderer’s bedside. There’s a completely original character called Hypokinetic Man, a guy who has a disorder that causes him literally to inch his way through life so slowly that one has to look closely to tell that he’s moving. His unapparent responses and silence make him a repository of a number of confessions. I suppose there’s some significance to the fact that the title character and this one are given titles a la comic book personages rather than real names. There’s also a guru, who becomes a guru despite himself because no one in the community will attend his real calling--that of a psychotherapist. It all amounts to a great setup, but I found the book rather unsatisfying in the end. Perhaps a clue to the reason might be Nigam’s statement in the acknowledgments that one Julia Serebrinsky somehow found a novel in the six-hundred plus pages of the small-type-narrow-margin manuscript he brought her. It has a feeling of disunity to me, as if someone picked a little here, a little there, montaged the thing and put it between covers. Yet, it seems that Publisher’s Weekly chose Transplanted Man as the best book of 2002. So who am I? Chopped curry, I guess. Nevertheless, here’s my first introduction of the little man and his reaction that sums up the 1000 or so words above.
September 12, 2016
If it were an option, I'd give this book 4.5 stars. It was a very enjoyable read, and I loved every single flawed character. Humor was prevalent throughout the book, but in a very natural way, it never felt forced to me. My only hesitation in giving this book 5 stars is that a couple of the philosophical conversations are slightly long and boring. But really, I found this book to be nearly perfect. I look forward to reading other works by this author, and I recommend this book highly.
January 23, 2012
http://okudumdanoldu.blogspot.be/2010...
Amerika'da yaşayan Hintlilerin hayatı, Hintli doktorların çalıştığı hastanede olan bitenler var. Yapay İnsan aslında 6 7 tane organ nakli geçirmiş Hindistan'ın sağlık bakanıdır. Ana karakterimiz Sonny adlı genç doktor. Etrafındaki karakterler ise okumayı çok seven hemşire Gwen, hademe Manny, uykusuzluk sorununu çözmeye çalışan Dr. Ranjan ve Alvin, karısının poposunu ısırıp hastanelik eden Nishad ve Sonali, restoran sahibi Tiger, aslında psikoterapist olan ama guru ayağına yatan Dr. Giri, Hintli şovmen ve politikacı Ronny ve en tatlısı da "hipokinetik adam". Kitapta aslında birsürü küçük hikaye var. Genele bakıldığında giriş-gelişme-sonuçtan çok bir kesit yansıtılmış. Türkiye'ye dönüş öncesine geldiği için çabuk bitiremedim ama karakterleri şurda takır takır sayabilmiş olmam onları sevdiğimin bir göstergesi. Herkesin bir takım sırları ve sorunları var. Amerika'daki bu "küçük Hindistan"da yolları bir şekilde kesişiyor. İlginç, sıcak ve tatlı bir hikaye. Bir süre sonra, koltukta battaniyeye sarınmış şekilde tekrar okumak istediğim bir kitap.
Amerika'da yaşayan Hintlilerin hayatı, Hintli doktorların çalıştığı hastanede olan bitenler var. Yapay İnsan aslında 6 7 tane organ nakli geçirmiş Hindistan'ın sağlık bakanıdır. Ana karakterimiz Sonny adlı genç doktor. Etrafındaki karakterler ise okumayı çok seven hemşire Gwen, hademe Manny, uykusuzluk sorununu çözmeye çalışan Dr. Ranjan ve Alvin, karısının poposunu ısırıp hastanelik eden Nishad ve Sonali, restoran sahibi Tiger, aslında psikoterapist olan ama guru ayağına yatan Dr. Giri, Hintli şovmen ve politikacı Ronny ve en tatlısı da "hipokinetik adam". Kitapta aslında birsürü küçük hikaye var. Genele bakıldığında giriş-gelişme-sonuçtan çok bir kesit yansıtılmış. Türkiye'ye dönüş öncesine geldiği için çabuk bitiremedim ama karakterleri şurda takır takır sayabilmiş olmam onları sevdiğimin bir göstergesi. Herkesin bir takım sırları ve sorunları var. Amerika'daki bu "küçük Hindistan"da yolları bir şekilde kesişiyor. İlginç, sıcak ve tatlı bir hikaye. Bir süre sonra, koltukta battaniyeye sarınmış şekilde tekrar okumak istediğim bir kitap.
September 21, 2007
funny, poignant, complex. Being a "transplanted woman" myself, I found myself nodding and laughing at certain passages in the book.
Only two minor grumbles prevented me from giving this book 5 stars: 1) the dialogue between characters was very stilted. 2) I like my books to have endings where everything ties up neatly, and this one left me with a bunch of questions... still, maybe that's a plus rather than a minus?
Only two minor grumbles prevented me from giving this book 5 stars: 1) the dialogue between characters was very stilted. 2) I like my books to have endings where everything ties up neatly, and this one left me with a bunch of questions... still, maybe that's a plus rather than a minus?
June 14, 2011
It is unusual for me not to work my way thru the character development so that I can enjoy the overall story but unfortunately, I gave up by Chapter 11. The characters were coming to life but I no longer cared what happened to them.
July 6, 2009
This is a beautiful book. A wonderful mix of characters and plot lines that does leave you wanting much, much more of Nigam's writing!
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September 16, 2015Excellent novel I just picked up at random.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews