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Part I of “A Thousand Splendid Suns” begins in the 1970s, when Mariam is a teenager living with her mother, Nana. They live in a small hut outside of Herat and are poor since Nana’s husband abandoned them. However, Mariam has been taught to recite verses from the Koran by Mullah Faizullah, whom she looks up to and admires. Jalil comes to visit her every week even though Nana tries to convince Mariam that he does not want anything to do with her because she is illegitimate.

One day, against her brother’s wishes, Mariam goes to see him in his house. She is told he isn’t there and after spending the entire night sleeping on his stoop, she is brought back home by a chauffeur. After that experience, she sees her mother hanging from a rope. She feels terrible about it and knows now that Nana was right about Jalil marrying her off to Rasheed who is thirty years older than her.

In Kabul, Mariam is amazed by the city’s cosmopolitan atmosphere. Rasheed makes her wear a burqa and mainly stay at home. He takes her on outings but becomes hostile after she miscarries several times. The story shifts to Laila, who is growing up in Kabul not far from Rasheed and Mariam’s house. She gets an education because of her father, Babi. But Mammy misses two sons fighting with the Mujahideen against the Soviets so much that she becomes depressed and unable to take care of Laila. However, despite these difficulties, Laila has more happy memories than Mariam: walks home from school with Giti and Hasina; lessons with Babi; even a romance with Tariq—a boy whose leg was amputated when he stepped on a land mine when he was five years old—who witnesses the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan together with his friend Laila before they sleep together for the first time just before Tariq’s family flees for Pakistan as well (the same day that his mother is killed). Just as their relationship turns romantic while they’re planning to leave Kabul too, however, a rocket hits their house and kills both parents.

Part III alternates between Mariam’s and Laila’s point of view. Rasheed digs Laila out of the rubble after their house is destroyed, and Mariam nurses him back to health. However, it soon becomes clear that Rasheed only wanted to marry Laila because he was attracted to her beautiful face; she soon becomes pregnant with Tariq’s child. Mariam begs him not to take Laila as his second wife, but he threatens to turn her into the street if she doesn’t agree. He makes it seem like a good deal for both women – if one marries him willingly and protects his honor from being besmirched by another woman taking up in his home without marrying or becoming a concubine, then the other will be allowed an honorable life outside instead of living in sin as any unmarried mother would have been forced upon society at that time period. Both women reluctantly agree, but soon develop contempt for each other due to their differences. They live together in tense silence until Abdul Sharif comes looking for news on Tariq’s whereabouts—he tells them that Tariq was caught in crossfire while traveling through Pakistan with his lorry (truck) and died instantly.

Rasheed is initially kind and loving to Laila. After she gives birth to a baby girl, Aziza, however, he becomes irritable and even violent at times. He’s angry that it wasn’t a boy. At one point, Laila tries to stop Rasheed from beating Mariam. This small act leads the tensions between the two women cool down somewhat; after drinking several cups of chai together they become friends rather than enemies. Laila confides in Mariam that she has been stealing bit by bit from Rasheed and plans on escaping Kabul with her daughter during springtime when the Mujahideen aren’t as strict about letting people come or go as they are now (the author doesn’t mention this but I assume). Together with Aziza the two of them depart for the bus station where they ask an older man who looks like he might be their cousin to pretend he’s taking them out of town—Mujahideen prevent women from traveling alone so this is necessary if you want to leave without notifying your husband first which would probably lead him or other family members coming after you trying to bring you back home against your will). But things don’t go according to plan because someone informs Rasheed about what his wife was doing behind his back and before long both Mariam and Laila are found out by him while being taken back home where both beaten very badly before being locked into separate rooms for days on end until finally Rasheed decides what should happen next…