WARAND FAMILY C19 HISTORY AND MEMOIR FROM AFGHANISTAN C20 Fanfare books newsday.com/books Theripple of small failings Ordinary Afghans makebad choices in Khaled Hosseini’s intertwined stories AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED, by Khaled Hosseini. Riverhead, 404 pp., $28.95. BY MARION WINIK Special to Newsday nd the Mountains Echoed,” the third novel from Afghan- American writer ‘A Khaled Hosseini, is abit different from the author’s beloved earlier books. Between them, “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns” have sold 38 million copies world- wide; both have intense, melo- dramatic plots that revolve around brutal events: rape, murder, suicide. Like them, the new novel tells atale of heart- break and betrayal. But its scope is wider, its crimes of agentler AGES PHOTO, 2012 sort. IM Rather than giving us extreme ETTY villains, Hosseini now focuses /G on the trespasses of essentially AFP likable characters —ordinary In “And the Mountains Echoed,” the bestselling author of “The Kite Runner” explores the small decisions on which much of life hinges. people whose moments of weakness have results worse time and place. At first, this is a div shows him that the boy, after his death. This explains a as described by his daughter. than they could ever imagine. little confusing, but within a who has lived in poverty and lot, and also raises awhole new “Baba and his grease-stained There is agirl who pushes her couple of chapters, the reader hardship, is now living with a set of questions. white shirt, the bushel of gray sister out of tree, afather who catches on, and fitting the puz- happy band of beautifully Chapter 5takes us to 2003, chest hair spilling over the open gives up his daughter to a zle pieces together becomes a dressed children in apleasure where two Afghan-American top button, his thick hairy fore- wealthy family, aforeign doctor pleasure. The story unfolds garden with swimming pools. cousins have come to reclaim arms. Baba beaming, waving who doesn’t make good on his from the 1940s to 2010, every- Take him if you want, says the their family’s home after the cheerfully to each entering promise to awounded girl. where from atiny village in div.The father finds he cannot. war. It happens to be the house customer. Hello, sir! Hello, newsday.com (Actually, there is one craven Afghanistan to atiny island in In the next chapter, told from next door to the Wahdatis. madam! Welcome to Abe’s Afghani warlord who is purely Greece, with stops in Kabul, Abdullah’s perspective, some- This may sound bewildering, Kabob house. I’m Abe. Can i villainous.) Human failures, and Paris and San Francisco. thing much like this happens in but it all starts to make sense. take your order please? It made their ripple effects over time, In the first section, an Afghan real life, tearing from him his Clearly it’s all going to circle me cringe how he didn’t realize are seen in acontext beautifully father tells asad fable to his two adored sister Pari. In that chap- back eventually —but how? that he sounded like the goofy NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2013 described by the book’s epi- children, Abdullah and his sister ter, three more key characters The pages turn by themselves as Middle Eastern sidekick in abad graph from the poet Rumi: Pari. Aman is forced by an evil are introduced: astrange, Hosseini makes it happen. sitcom.” spirit, a div,togive up the most wealthy resident of Kabul What works slightly less well How wrongs are righted, or Out beyond ideas beloved of his offspring. When named Mr. Wahdati; his rebel- is the ever-expanding cast of not, how good balances evil, or of wrongdoing and rightdoing he goes to get the boy back, the lious, beautiful young wife; and characters. Some feel essential, doesn’t —these are Hosseini’s there is afield. their chauffeur, who is Abdul- but some of the tertiary charac- concerns, both in fiction and in I’ll meet you there. lah’s Uncle Nabi, the brother of ters strain abit to keep our humanitarian work he does for his bitter and stingy stepmother. attention. the United Nations. His ability “And the Mountains Echoed” EXCERPT In Chapter 3, we flash back to Hosseini’s writing is not as to make us look hard at these has an ambitious structure. It is Read part of ‘And the 1949 to get the goods on the lyrical as Rumi’s, but he moves a matters —and to bring the inner anovel in stories, each chapter Mountains Echoed’ stepmother. story like alocomotive and life of Afghanistan to the world told from adifferent character’s newsday.com/books Chapter 4isaletter written paints character in fast, sure —make his novels more than perspective, set in adifferent by Uncle Nabi, meant to be read strokes. Here is one character, just good reads..