Book Review: "And the Mountains Echoed" by Khaled Hosseini

In my opinion, Khaled Hosseini is the greatest living author that I have read. His books are moving, breathtaking, and the characters are deep and rich. His stories make me uncomfortable and depressed, which is unfortunate -- I love the author but dislike the stories, somewhat. His stories contain so much sadness, and this story is no exception. In this book, he has one character, a daughter, that asks a set of interesting questions about another character, her mother, who is an author. The daughter says, "The power and beauty of her writing was undeniable. But if the account Maman had given of her life in the interview was a lie, then where did the images of her work come from? Where was the wellspring for words that were honest and lovely and brutal and sad? Was she merely a gifted trickster? A magician, with a pen for a wand, able to move an audience by conjuring emotions she had never known herself? Was that even possible?" Clearly, we could ask the same about Mr. Hosseini. How can he write such moving stories that contain so much pain, sadness, and heartache? Personal experience? The biographical information I could find gives no hint of such heartache in his past. Regardless, this is a sad, moving, and extremely well written story. Grade: A