A Thousand Splendid Suns recap

In Afghanistan, an illegitimate girl named Mariam is married off at fifteen to Rasheed, a much older Kabul shoemaker, after her mother's suicide and her father's rejection. When she cannot give him a living child, Rasheed turns cruel. Years later, Laila, a bright girl on the same street, is orphaned by a rocket in the civil war and, believing her childhood love Tariq dead, is taken in and married by Rasheed as a second wife. The two women, at first rivals, become like mother and daughter as they endure Rasheed's abuse and the harsh rule of the Taliban. Laila raises a daughter secretly fathered by Tariq and a son by Rasheed. When Tariq returns alive and Rasheed nearly beats Laila to death in his fury, Mariam kills him with a shovel to save her. Mariam gives herself up so that Laila can escape, and is executed by the Taliban. Laila reunites with Tariq, and after the Taliban fall she returns to a rebuilding Kabul carrying Mariam's memory forward.

Mariam is an illegitimate girl, a harami, raised in a small hut outside Herat by her embittered mother, Nana, and visited weekly by her wealthy father, Jalil, whom she adores. On her fifteenth birthday she defies Nana and goes into town to find Jalil, who refuses to see her; when she returns, she finds that Nana has hanged herself, believing she had been abandoned. Taken briefly into Jalil's household, Mariam is quickly and shamefully married off to Rasheed, a coarse shoemaker from Kabul many years her senior, and sent far from home. Rasheed treats her passably at first and hopes for a son, but when Mariam suffers a series of miscarriages his disappointment curdles into coldness and cruelty, and she settles into a lonely, fearful marriage in a strange city.

The story turns to Laila, a clever, well-loved girl growing up years later on the same Kabul street. Her father, a gentle former teacher, prizes her education, while her mother is lost in grief and pride over two sons away at war. Laila's dearest companion is Tariq, a warm-hearted neighbor boy who lost a leg to a landmine and who grows ever closer to her. Around them, the withdrawal of the Soviets gives way to vicious fighting among rival factions, and Kabul, once relatively safe, becomes a battleground of shifting front lines and falling rockets. Ordinary life grows perilous, families begin to flee, and the two children come of age amid checkpoints, shelling, and mounting fear, their bond deepening as the world around them falls apart.

As the danger worsens, Tariq's family decides to leave Kabul. Before he goes, Laila and Tariq, believing they may never see each other again, share a moment of intimacy, and he begs her to come with him or to wait for him. Laila stays, unable to abandon her parents just as they at last agree to flee the city themselves. Then catastrophe strikes: a rocket destroys Laila's home, killing both her parents and leaving her gravely injured. Orphaned, alone, and soon aware that she is carrying Tariq's child, Laila is taken in and nursed by the aging Rasheed and his worn-down wife, Mariam. A stranger arrives with word that Tariq has died on the road, a report that closes off Laila's last hope of escape and leaves her utterly without protection.

Grieving and pregnant with no one to turn to, Laila accepts Rasheed's proposal and becomes his second wife, passing off the coming child as his. Mariam bitterly resents the newcomer at first, but when Laila bears a daughter, Aziza, the two women slowly draw together, forming a fierce, sustaining bond against Rasheed's tyranny. He grows more brutal and controlling toward them both. The women attempt to flee Kabul together with the child, but they are caught, returned, and savagely punished. Meanwhile the Taliban seize power and impose crushing restrictions, confining women to their homes, banning their work and schooling, and enforcing their rule with public cruelty. Trapped by both husband and regime, Mariam and Laila endure together in deepening poverty and fear.

Under the Taliban, life becomes a struggle for survival. Hunger forces Rasheed to place Aziza in an orphanage, and Laila risks beatings on the streets to visit her. Laila bears a son, Zalmai, whom Rasheed favors. Then Tariq, long thought dead, reappears at the door, and Laila learns that Rasheed had paid a man to lie about his death years earlier. When Rasheed discovers the truth, he attacks Laila in a killing rage, beating and choking her. To save Laila's life, Mariam takes up a shovel and strikes Rasheed dead. Understanding that they cannot both flee, Mariam sends Laila away with Tariq and the children and gives herself up to the Taliban, taking full responsibility for the killing. She is condemned and publicly executed, meeting her death with a hard-won calm, having finally been a mother and a friend to someone who needed her.

Laila, Tariq, and the children escape to Pakistan, where they live in exile and safety until the fall of the Taliban. Drawn back to her ruined homeland, Laila returns to Kabul, stopping first in Herat to see where Mariam came from. There she learns the story of Mariam's childhood and is given a letter and a small legacy that Mariam's father had left in remorse for the daughter he had wronged. Back in Kabul, Laila and Tariq help rebuild the city, and Laila takes up teaching and work at the orphanage that once held Aziza. Pregnant again and looking toward a fragile new future for Afghanistan, she decides that if her child is a girl, she will name her Mariam, so that the woman who sacrificed everything to save them will not be forgotten.

Mariam's life ends in sacrifice, and Laila's opens into hope. When Tariq reappears, alive after years of Rasheed's lie that he had died, Rasheed flies into a murderous rage and begins beating Laila to death. To save her, Mariam strikes and kills Rasheed with a shovel. Knowing that both women cannot escape, Mariam insists on taking sole blame; she surrenders to the Taliban authorities and is publicly executed, choosing her end freely and finding a kind of peace in having, at last, loved and been needed. Laila flees with Tariq and the children to Pakistan, where they live quietly until the Taliban regime collapses. Drawn home, Laila returns to Kabul and, on the way, visits Herat, where she learns of Mariam's childhood and receives a letter and a small inheritance her father had left for the daughter he failed. Laila and Tariq settle into the recovering city, and Laila takes up work helping to rebuild an orphanage and teach children. Pregnant again, she resolves that if the baby is a girl she will name her Mariam, keeping alive the woman who gave everything for her.