Book Review | The River that Separates Us

This novel is an emotional rollercoaster, not because it dwells on violence, but because it unfolds in its aftermath. All kinds of violence: the internal, and the external; in the past, and in the present.

I love how the author chooses intimacy over spectacle, even as the novel unfolds in the aftermath of the violence of partition. The novel turns its gaze toward the people left behind and, in doing so, humanises its characters. Sia speaks not of people as broken remnants of what they were, but as whole beings who continue to exist, even after all has been lost. And it is true: we retain our dignity and our character. It is tested precisely in times of upheaval.

What struck me most was how deeply the book speaks to the textures of everyday life; when a Nawabzadi was turned into a maidservant in her own household, or when a servant girl rescued the woman she formerly served.

It reminded me of the story of Sheikh Abdul Qadir. He was once roaming the streets of Baghdad when a drunkard spotted him. The drunkard called out to the Sheikh.

“قادر ام غیر قادر؟” "?Can He, or Can he not"

The first question was, “Can He stop me from being a drunkard?” To which the Sheikh humbly replied, “Qadir.” He can, of course. The Sheikh kept walking, and the beggar called out to him a second time, asking him, “Can He make me a Saint?”

To this, the Sheikh responded “Qadir” once again. The drunkard called to him a third time, with the same question, “Qadir am ghair qadir?” The drunkard had asked, “Can He make me a Saint like you, and make you a beggar like me?” This is why Sheikh Abdul Qadir wept as he said “Qadir” - this is the Almightiness of Allah. This is how life often works.

In particular, something which stuck with me as a reader was how the novel insists on looking at characters gently, in greys, as we simply exist, refusing to reduce them to symbols of suffering or resilience alone.

At its heart, the story is an exploration of family in Pakistan. Is it ideal? Certainly not. It is a living, breathing, complicated structure built on love, obligation, silence, and survival.

What I admired most is the novel’s refusal to deal in absolutes. No one exists in black and white. Parents fail their daughters or push their sons too far. Affection and harm take root from the same tree: a family.

Resilience takes many forms. We endure, we forgive, we persist, and we hope. We fight the world, and ourselves; we kill to survive, before we are killed. To quote Mary Shelly, “Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”

Bilal, Jabbar, and to some extent, even Shair, were brutal reminders of the fact that the patriarchal system does not hold any woman gently. Nothing separates a Nawabzadi and her house help; nothing protects either of them from meeting the same fate, besides God Himself.

Whilst Shahnoor’s brothers are the heirs to Shair’s fiefdom, it is she who bears the burden of holding fractured relationships in place, not once, but twice around. Some would argue that she had been forsaken, but to her, to so many of us, obedience is duty. It is simply the way things are done. We do not feel wronged, even if we know a decision made by our parents was a bad decision.

We refuse to acknowledge the ruins of ourselves, forever rebuilding. There will always be a purpose, like Maaji found hers in raising Shahnoor. Pain is a test. We reconcile with the consequences of poor choices, not as harm inflicted upon us, but as fate, and we move on. Through Shahnoor, the novel gives language to the weight Pakistani women carry without ever calling it a burden.

The book does not shy away from generational trauma or the coping mechanisms it produces: overwork, emotional distance, the hollowed-out gaze of those who have learned to survive by becoming numb.

There is something almost Kafkaesque in its portrayal of self-acceptance, a quiet,

unsettling journey toward understanding who you are within systems that may or may not have been built to be gentle.

Objectively speaking, this is not always a bad thing. There is a price to be paid for everything, especially for order. Chaos does not necessarily bring freedom, even if rules often feel suffocating.

That one moment where Fahima and Shahnoor talk over a cup of tea defines girlhood in Pakistan. We all know the feeling of finding refuge with our best friends, even from our families, all too well.

By the end, the book leaves you with a simple, devastating truth: nothing can ever be as it was before, but life insists on continuing anyway. And sometimes, that continuation is its own quiet triumph. You fix what can be fixed, and carry the rest within you.

There is a quiet satisfaction in watching the characters return, not to who they once were, but to who they have learned to become. The plot was extremely well-crafted, with no loose ends at all. Everything came full circle, not necessarily in a good way or bad, but the way it does in life, as a matter of fact, difficult to classify.

From a strictly literary point of view, the narrator keeps us updated on the story in, by and large, a chronological order of events. The imagery is finely written, and leans towards elemental symbols: dust, silence, and prayer, to externalise the internal state of the characters.

It does not seek to shock, but to linger, leaving an emotional residue that follows the reader beyond the last page. The language is restrained, almost deceptively simple, which only makes the story’s emotional depth hit harder. There were moments that made me laugh, and others that pushed me to tears. Sia K’s The River that Separates Us has earned its place alongside my other favourites of sentimental period pieces: Zulaikha, The Bride, and A Stationary Shop in Tehran.