Shelf Life

This may be the best book I have read in 5 or 10 years. In places it is so heart breaking that it is difficult to read. It is beautifully written and the protagonist, Amir, seems so real that you can’t help thinking it is an autobiography (it is not).

Amir, as a child, betrays his truest friend Hassan, the son of his father’s servant. Hassan is as kind and loyal a person as you will find in literature. His heart-felt refrain, “For you, a thousand times over,” still haunts me as it did Amir. The betrayal is so awful that it defines Amir’s entire life (as he tells us in the first line of the book).

Amir and his father flee Afghanistan and the Soviet supported communist government. They land in the U.S. where Amir grows into manhood and marries. As an adult Amir is unable to connect with his father and is never able to be truly happy, even with the love of a good woman. After his father’s death Amir learns that Hassan and his wife have been killed by the Taliban. Amir travels to pre-9/11 Afghanistan to rescue Hassan’s son and to attempt to redeem himself. He must face down the brutal Taliban regime, international bureaucracies, and the demons of his youth.

It is certain to become a classic.

Mr. Doyle