Transplanted Man [Hardcover]

Sanjay Nigam (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 23, 2002

East meets West in this romp of a novel that combines the hilarity of Catch 22 with the urgency of ER and the poignancy of The World According to Garp. Sonny Seth is a brilliant but rebellious medical resident at New York hospital that services a community of eccentric expatriates from India. His most demanding patient and trusted confidant - known only as the Transplanted Man - is a high-level Indian government official whose major organs have been transplanted at least once. Deathly ill but amusingly wise, he is now hunted by assassins and his sneaky nemesis, a Bollywood superstar vying for stardom in politics. Trying to solve his patient's ballooning afflictions, Sonny faces demons of his own in a soul-searching journey that will involve a bibliophilic English nurse, a scientist desperate to discover a cure for insomnia, and a psychotherapist constantly confused for a New Age guru. With a cast of wonderfully drawn characters, TRANSPLANTED MAN offers a new kind of passage to India, and pays tribute to the rich subculture where India and America intersect.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sonny Seth is a resident at a hospital in New York's Little India. One night a truly unique patient arrives: Transplanted Man, an Indian politician whose body "harbored seven organs--a heart, a pancreas, a liver, two lungs, and a pair of corneas--that had once belonged to people of differing faiths." Transplanted Man has turned his seeming disability to his advantage and has become an important minister in the Indian cabinet: "In an India coping with ethnic and religious fragmentation, no other politician could so credibly claim to represent everyone." Sanjay Nigam's Transplanted Man is like the title character's body: it contains multitudes. There's the brilliant Sonny Seth himself, unsure of where he belongs, uncomfortable in New York but doomed to find India is "too Indian" for him. Seth and his hospital coworkers are plenty eccentric, but their patients outstrip them in weirdness altogether. One engineer, for instance, changes the course of his life by sinking his teeth into his wife's buttock. Nigam (a doctor and the author of The Snake Charmer) crams his second novel with medical lore, Indian scents, and lots of comic angst. The result is a book as teeming with life as the corridors of a great metropolitan hospital. --Claire Dederer

From Library Journal

This second novel (after The Snake Charmer) should earn acclaim for Nigam, a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Funny but not unintelligent, mocking but not mean-spirited (especially toward health professionals), it involves several odd characters who work in a New York City hospital serving Little India, where cultures intersect but never quite fuse. Sonny Seth, our brilliant leading man, is a natural-born healer and regular sleepwalker who, while completing his residency, treats the seriously ill Transplanted Man. A high-ranking Indian politician, this patient has survived transplants of most major organs. However, he is clearly not the only "transplanted" person populating this novel's pages. Most of Nigam's eccentrics are searching for prominence, purpose, or peace-not to mention a good night's sleep-but all of them are seeking a sense of belonging as they return from their own emotional, geographical, physical, or cultural diasporas. Recommended.
Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of Oregon, Eugene
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (July 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688168191
• ISBN-13: 978-0688168193
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,454,446 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A PLACE WE ALL WANT TO VISIT, October 18, 2002

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Transplanted Man (Hardcover)

Following his debut novel, "The Snake Charmer," which was a finalist for a number of important awards, novelist/physician Sanjay Nigam presents a story both touching and humorous.

The title character, known only as the Transplanted Man, is "not only a medical curiosity but one of India's most powerful, popular and some said, wiliest politicians.......His body now harbored seven organs that had once belonged to different people." He has entered a New York City hospital where he is under the care of Dr. Sunit "Sonny" Seth, a young medic prone to sleepwalking and haunted by thoughts of his homeland.

The Transplanted Man hovers on the brink of death yet retains a wryly wise outlook. Sonny valiantly attempts to solve his patient's increasing medical problems, and come to terms with Gwen, and English nurse, whose actions are propelled by impulse rather than reason.

Nigam's gift for creating unforgettable characters is again showcased with Dr. Ranjan, an insomniac scientist who searches for the cause of insomnia, a psychotherapist who passes himself off as a New Age guru in order to make ends meet, and an egomaniacal actor with political aspirations.

With the Indian area of Queens as his backdrop Sanjay Nigam luminously paints a culture little known to most. In the hands of this author Little India becomes a place all will want to visit.

- Gail Cooke
.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TOUCHING AND HUMOROUS IMAGINATIVE PROSE, December 22, 2006

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Transplanted Man (Paperback)

Following his debut novel, "The Snake Charmer," which was a finalist for a number of important awards, novelist/physician Sanjay Nigam presents a story both touching and humorous.
The title character, known only as the Transplanted Man, is "not only a medical curiosity but one of India's most powerful, popular and some said, wiliest politicians.......His body now harbored seven organs that had once belonged to different people." He has entered a New York City hospital where he is under the care of Dr. Sunit "Sonny" Seth, a young medic prone to sleepwalking and haunted by thoughts of his homeland.
The Transplanted Man hovers on the brink of death yet retains a wryly wise outlook. Sonny valiantly attempts to solve his patient's increasing medical problems, and come to terms with Gwen, and English nurse, whose actions are propelled by impulse rather than reason.
Nigam's gift for creating unforgettable characters is again showcased with Dr. Ranjan, an insomniac scientist who searches for the cause of insomnia, a psychotherapist who passes himself off as a New Age guru in order to make ends meet, and an egomaniacal actor with political aspirations.
With the Indian area of Queens as his backdrop Sanjay Nigam luminously paints a culture little known to most. In the hands of this author Little India becomes a place all will want to visit.

- Gail Cooke

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful Analysis of Indian-American Universe, December 18, 2006

By 

Marc A. Meyers "South California Reader" (San Diego) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Transplanted Man (Hardcover)

This book presents five intertwining stories taking place in a New York hospital. All characters are of Indian origin--except for the hero's nymphomaniac girlfriend.
The author moves us from plot to plot in a seamless manner, but the pace of the novel is slow, hypokinetic.
The description of the Indian psyche and customs is superb. This reviewer had several Indian roommates. One of them, a brilliant and eccentric physics student, even tried to stab him in the kitchen and succeeded in throwing him over a pot of curried chicken; all this over a girl, Satya, aka Karen. Numerous close academic friends dot his existence and he can relate to the intricacies of their minds.
The characters are well developed and diverse. The dialog is well crafted, although excessive in places. Good use is made in several places, of one-sentence paragraphs to emphasize the dramatic effect. Book has a humorous overtone that is pleasant, but lacks a great, over arching denouement. It peters out at the end, rather than going out in a bang. The hero never meets his father. The transplanted man does not make it back to India to cleanse the country from its many vices. The dog returns to the street. The girl moves on.