And the Mountains Echoed

March 18, 2013
Hosseini’s third novel (after A Thousand Splendid Suns) follows a close-knit but oft-separated Afghan family through love, wars, and losses more painful than death. The story opens in 1952 in the village of Shadbagh, outside of Kabul, as a laborer, Kaboor, relates a haunting parable of triumph and loss to his son, Abdullah. The novel’s core, however, is the sale for adoption of the Kaboor’s three-year-old daughter, Pari, to the wealthy poet Nila Wahdati and her husband, Suleiman, by Pari’s step-uncle Nabi. The split is particularly difficult for Abdullah, who took care of his sister after their mother’s death. Once Suleiman has a stroke, Nila leaves him to Nabi’s care and takes Pari to live in Paris. Much later, during the U.S. occupation, the dying Nabi makes Markos, a Greek plastic surgeon now renting the Wahdati house, promise to find Pari and give her a letter containing the truth. The beautiful writing, full of universal truths of loss and identity, makes each section a jewel, even if the bigger picture, which eventually expands to include Pari’s life in France, sometimes feels disjointed. Still, Hosseini’s eye for detail and emotional geography makes this a haunting read. Agent: Robert Barnett, Williams & Connolly.

July 29, 2013
Khaled Hosseini’s third novel is told via a series of interlinking stories—beginning in an Afghanistan village in 1952 when an impoverished man named Saboor is faced with the prospect of giving up one of his children in order to survive. From this crucial moment, the narrative expands, as Saboor’s decision impacts his descendants and acquaintances for generations to come. Author Khaled Hosseini and narrators Navid Negahban and Shohreh Aghdashloo alternate reading duties. Of the three, the author speaks with the clearest elocution, though his reading, while precise, is also stiff at times—and this may take listeners out of the story. Negahban and Aghdashloo, who deliver the bulk of the narrative, are more emotive and hand in performances that are more likely to capture and keep listener attention. A Riverhead hardcover.