As I commented in my post about The Kite Runner, I knew as soon as I finished the last page of that book and saw that Khaled Hosseini was writing another one that I would read it. Then time passed, and Dreaming in Titanic City did not come. I’d about given up on it when the publication of A Thousand Splendid Suns was announced. By that time, my fervor for his writing had waned, and while I knew I still wanted to read it, I didn’t rush out to get it. In fact, if it hadn’t been chosen as one of my book club’s selections, I don’t know how long I would have gone without reading it.

Anyway, I checked a copy out from the library one afternoon, and spend the better part of the evening reading it. It kept me rivetted, although there were times when I had to put the book down, not sure if I could keep reading, because I just knew that something terrible was about to happen and I couldn’t bear to read it. But of course, I did, finally turning the last page somewhere around 2am that morning.

Hosseini returns to modern Afghanistan, with the past thirty years framing the personal lives of two women, Mariam and Laila. Mariam is the illegitimate daughter whose mother proclaims “Women like us. We endure. It’s all we have.” That fatalistic statement mirrors the path of Mariam’s life for the next two decades. Laila is the spirited young woman whose love affair is torn apart by the ongoing fighting that is destroying her beloved city of Kabul. Once again, Hosseini manages to create a deep sense of empathy for these characters as they are swept up into the terrible and tragic events taking place around them. As different as the Afghan culture is to our own, as much strife and warfare they have endured, we still share the ability to love, the capacity for hope, and the resilience of the human spirit.