Is there a story behind the title Cutting for Stone?
It's from a line in the Hippocratic Oath,u00a0. . .u00a0I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifestu00a0. . .u00a0In the days when bladder stones were epidemic, there were itinerant stone cutters who would cut and get the stone out, but because they wiped the bloody knife on their aprons, patients usually died of infection the next day.

In my novel, several of the characters have the surname 'Stone' and they are surgeons, and I hoped the phrase would resonate for the reader at several levels.

Cutting for Stone is about a pair of identical twins. How much of the descriptions are influenced by your personal experience?
Actually the twins sort of emerged.u00a0 I don't think they had to do with my sons who are close in age, or my older brother and me. It's always been a tempting device for writers to explore two polar extremes in 'one' person, and it became an important redemptive theme in the book. I think we are all fascinated to some degree by twins (and nuns) and hence their initial appearance.