Books on the Boat: Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi

When stories carry what history leaves behind.

A reflective Maine spring read on the histories we don't see, the way medicine and memory overlap, and why no two readers ever finish the same book.

Along the causeway between Littlejohn and Cousins, the night sky reminds us that even the smallest sparks can help us find our way home.

Longer light on the causeway

During May, evenings in Maine last longer. Light settles softly across the water past dinner, inviting long walks and audiobooks that unfold in rhythm with the shoreline.

Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi is one such book. Hashimi, a pediatrician whose parents immigrated from Afghanistan in the 1970s, writes about displacement, memory, and survival from the perspective of one whose family has lived it.

The novel follows Sitara Zamani, a young girl from a prominent Kabul family aligned with President Daoud Khan. In 1978, her family is destroyed when a communist coup overthrows Khan’s government. Sitara escapes Afghanistan, rebuilds her life in the United States under a new name, and eventually becomes a physician, while still carrying unanswered questions about her family and homeland. Decades later, an encounter with a patient forces her to confront her ongoing anger about her displacement and the violence inflicted upon her family.

“She would be brave because her father had once told her that the world lived within her. That her bones were made of mountains. That rivers coursed through her veins. That her heartbeat was the sound of a thousand pounding hooves. That her eyes glittered with the light of a starry sky. I am that girl, and this is my story.”
― Nadia Hashimi

“Afghanistan’s secret weapon has always been her women.”― Nadia Hashimi

The stories beneath the surface

Hashimi’s novel reminds us that many people we encounter may carry histories of war, migration, trauma, or generational displacement that remain largely invisible to those around them.

My own extended family has experienced Afghanistan and the Middle East from a different vantage point: we’ve had multiple family members stationed there through military service. Across the United States, our military brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, returned home shaped by their exposure to the violence in that region. When I was a physician working with the VA, I regularly saw the physical and psychological aftereffects among our veterans.

It can be easy to forget that our veterans and their families were not the only ones affected. Whether we are talking about Afghans who left or those who stayed, the decades-long turmoil caused significant physical and emotional displacement. Afghanistan became a defining conflict for an entire generation, much as Vietnam had been for the generation before.

“We never fully know the stories people carry into our lives.”

At the same time, cultures such as Vietnam's and Afghanistan's have long-standing intellectual, artistic, and medical traditions. These are not simply war-torn lands, as suggested by media snapshots and sound bites.

Physicians and other clinicians often have a front-row seat to the nuances.

As physicians, we are trained to be objective, and most clinicians work hard to maintain this objectivity. Still, medicine unfolds in human communities, not sterile abstractions. In smaller towns, specialized practices, or interconnected professional circles, personal and professional lives inevitably overlap.

Hashimi explores the ethical and emotional complexities of this overlap. Sitara’s experience in Afghanistan left lasting wounds. Sitara’s patient, someone she had known as a child before the coup, no doubt carried wounds of his own. Both brought them into their encounters with one another, yet Sitara’s professional role asked her to maintain a level of objectivity that many would find difficult.

“Have you forgotten the words of Rumi? 'You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.' I had never truly given myself over to those words until this moment. The thought of the ocean inside me, with its infinite drops, ran through me like a charge. My existence was integral to the universe.”
― Nadia Hashimi

Rather than focusing on whether Sitara’s character should have removed herself from the patient relationship (a question other clinicians may legitimately ask), I found myself reflecting on something broader: how experiences of childhood, conflict, loss, and identity continue to travel with us into adulthood and professional life.

As I have written about before, Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Naomi Remen asks a relevant question: What is the overlap between our patients’ stories and our own?

Stars and Shadows by Gary Akers

Reader response and what we bring to books

We each bring our lived experiences to our reading. When Sitara talks about using her sense of smell to understand her patients' maladies better, it mirrors something I’ve always done.

Modern medical training in the West does not include classes in clinical olfaction. Chinese medical training, in contrast, recognizes the nose as a powerful observational tool. Hashimi brings that telling detail in almost obliquely, and it reminded me why conversations around books can become so personal.

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After years of speaking with artists through Radio Maine and Off the Wall, I’ve found that most creators fully expect people to encounter their work subjectively, given that each art lover arrives before a piece with their own life in tow.

In contrast, many of us have been in classes that emphasized finding the “correct” interpretation of a text; a singular objective meaning we could collectively agree upon.

There is a name for the importance of subjectivity. Reader Response Theory holds that we bring our lived experience to how we interpret literature. The meaning of a book is not entirely fixed or objective—it emerges in conversation with the reader’s own memories, values, losses, and hopes.

That is why I write Books on the Boat and host regular virtual book circles. The conversations surrounding books are rarely just about books. They become conversations about the ways we understand one another.

That feels true not only in art and literature, but also in medicine, leadership, and relationships.

Pure Delight by Allen Bunker

“We read stories through the lens of our own lives.”

A thoughtful boat book

Sparks Like Stars works beautifully as an audiobook, enjoyed while running the trails of Cousins Island and while walking the dogs around Littlejohn. It is a novel that will likely stay with you long after the last words are spoken or the final page has turned.

Your Turn:

Have certain novels reshaped how you view people whose histories differ from your own?

For those who continue to join me in this love of reading, and of understanding one another through our own words and those of others, I offer my sincere gratitude.

Up next, The Color of Becoming: A spring reflection on Lìxià, the Chinese threshold into summer that arrives while Maine is still adorned in magnolias and crabapples.

✨ Thank you for walking this bountiful path with me.

Lisa

The Bountiful Path: Offering seasonal practices for real connection, rooted in medicine, leadership, and art.