The Tennis Partner

Published in 1999, when he was a physician practicing internal medicine in El Paso, Texas, this is an autobiographical 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.

[1] 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.

[2] 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.

In 2019, it was ranked by Slate as one of the 50 greatest nonfiction books of the past 25 years.