A Thousand Splendid Suns LRB #1

"A Thousand Splendid Suns", by Khaled Hosseini, is divided up into four parts. The first part of the book, labeled as part one, is told from the point of a view of the main character Mariam, and consists of the first one hundred and fifty three pages. The story starts by introducing the girl, and the author gives small bits of background history as you read more about her. Part one begins in the city of Herat, Afghanistan and then ends later in Kabul, Afghanistan. Mariam lives with her mother in a small shack of a building that is called a kolba. Her father's name is Jalil, although I prefer to call him her sperm donor. He has three other wives, however, that seems to not be enough for him. Mariam's mother Nana worked as a housekeeper for Jalil, and that is how the two met. When she began to show, the wives demanded that something be done about it. Hence how the two got to the kola. Jalil didn't want to throw her out, but he couldn't have her in his house, bringing shame to his name. That stupid name of his. It is funny because there is three of them, and now they want to be jealous. Like why? So anyway Mariam thinks the world of her father, and in her eyes he can do no wrong. Nana tries to warn her, but the poor child refuses to listen. When Mariam turns 15, she decides she wants to go to the cinema that her father owns and watch a movie. She waits and wait and waits for him, but he never comes. Then she travels from her kola, that is in the middle of the nowhere, and goes to Herat. She finds his house, and he is home, however he refuses to come out. They let Mariam sleep outside on the sidewalk and refuse to let her in. Then the next day the driver tells her that she must go home, so he takes her. When they get there Nana is hanging from a tree by a rope. She killed herself. So Mariam is forced to live with her father, who lets his wives convince him to marry her off to a man named Rasheed from Kabul. That's how she gets there. He makes her wear a burqa. She does all of the housework and cooking. He makes shoes for a living. She gets pregnant and has a miscarriage. That ends up happening like seven times. Then he gets mean because he wants a son to replace the one that he lost, and at one point in the story he makes her eat rocks, and it breaks several of her teeth. That's how part one ends.