The strong absence she has always felt in her life is the loss of connection with her brother Abdullah.

Hosseini stated that their bond formed the foundation of the relationship between Abdullah and Pari in the novel.He travels the world, using money that Thalia has inherited from her father, who’s recently passed away. Pari Wahdati arranges a trip to Afghanistan and after seeing her childhood home (the Wahdatis’), she remembers several things, but is still plagued with loss. The reader will notice many similarities between the “unconnected” narrators to the main characters—the members of the family part of the grand narrative. In general, the novel was received well, with Los Angeles Times critic Wendy Smith finding it "painfully sad but also radiant with love".

And it shares a similar penchant for mapping terrain midway between the boldly colored world of fable and the more shadowy, shaded world of realism… [W]e finish this novel with an intimate understanding of who his characters are and how they’ve defined themselves over the years through the choices they have made between duty and freedom, familial responsibilities and independence, loyalty to home and exile abroad… a deeply affecting choral work… a testament both to his intimate knowledge of their inner lives, and to his power as an old-fashioned storyteller.Her twin sister, Masoona, was so beautiful and amiable that she eclipsed her in all aspects of their lives, including their relationship with Saboor, the young man they both fell in love with. Nila Wahdati is a young French-Afghan woman renowned for her sexually charged poetry who is married off to a wealthy Kabul businessman. After Nila expressed dismay about her inability to have children, Nabi arranged for Pari to be sold to the couple, because Parwana has given birth to a son and Saboor cannot support 3 children. His story aches with unspoken feelings, regrets, releases, made tangible by tender details: the lapis tiles looted from a bathroom, the creases in an olive suit, the soft heel of a beautiful woman with no nang nor namoos, no honour. Recent examples of this genre include A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010) by Jennifer Egan, Let the Great World Spin (2009) by Colum McCann, and The Hours (1998) by Michael Cunningham.

More like a parent than a brother, Abdullah will do anything for her, even trading his only pair of shoes for a feather for her treasured collection. As they become friends he discovers that Gholman’s father, Iqbar, brought his family back to the village from a refugee camp in Pakistan.The older one, who he estimated to be around six years old, acted as a mother figure to the younger girl. Two more children follow, she becomes a professor of mathematics at the Sorbonne and they live a happy life. Amra Ademovic is a Bosnian nurse working in a hospital in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.