VERMONT

A few weeks ago, my son Aaron arranged a family vacation in Vermont.  We all went - all five of the kids, their families and me.  Such a glorious vacation - hiking, playing games, swimming - just being together with people you love in a beautiful environment.

While I was there. I read this book

The author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns has done it again!  One family was forced to make a very difficult and painful decision - a decision that changed and shaped the lives of not just those directly involved but a wide circle of people around the globe.

The novel is told from many different perspectives and reads like a series of interconnected short stories.  At the centre of it all, however, is the story of Pari and her bother, Abdullah.  It begins with their separation, when their father was forced to sell one of his children to keep the rest of the family fed and housed (not a spoiler - it happens almost on the first page).  The book chronicles their lives and the lives of many others all somehow connected to one or the other of the siblings.

Khaled Hosseini has once again proved himself to be a storyteller who truly understands the people he writes about and the culture they are from.  While I didn't experience the exhaustion of reading a very emotionally charged book (like I did with the other two novels), this one has taken over as my favourite of the three books by the author.

I love the topic of  family as a central theme of books.  This one is a multigenerational family story. All the grand themes of life, of being human, can be found within family stories—love, grief, conflict, duty, sacrifice. And yet, they play out differently from family to family, as each has its own unique makeup, dynamics, and volatile antagonisms, grounded as they may be in affection. And so there are endless variations on the theme. Families are puzzles that take a lifetime to work out —or not, as often is the case.  It's interesting to explore how people within them try to connect, be it through love, duty, or circumstance.

Fitting, then, to read an excellent family story on an excellent family vacation.