The Splintering is an audacious story about a woman’s unbridled desire to rise above her circumstances. Tara was born in Mazinagar, a rural village in Pakistan, which later evokes only memories of darkness and filth for her. She is one of four sisters, living under the oppressive rule of her elder brother. Her gender and class places her at a perpetual disadvantage but she is unable to make her “tepid peace” with the fact that life is unfair.
Tara begins her climb up the social ladder by first consciously choosing to marry a man from the city, then by getting a job. Financial emancipation, however, fails to quench her voracious appetite for social prestige. She is fond of her children but even when with them, she fantasises about her “real life” awaiting elsewhere. She finds no nobility in reminiscing about her origins and gets irked when her father-in-law, who also belongs to Mazinagar, waxes lyrical about their squalid village as a lost Eden.
She becomes consumed with the singular pursuit to distinguish herself from “the detritus I had left behind”. In parallel, her brother’s ambition also brings him to her city, much to her dismay. While his ambition is lauded by their family, Tara’s is considered greed.
The narrative unfurls against the backdrop of Pakistan’s tumultuous political climate and lays bare a biting social critique on pervasive disparities. Tara demanding her legal right to inheritance sparks a rift with her brother since women being denied their inheritance is the norm in rural areas; women in Tara’s family remain at the mercy of their patriarchal “guardians” for basic rights like education or healthcare; Tara is expected to be the sole caretaker of children while her husband does the bare minimum, even thought they are both breadwinners.
Although many of Tara’s decisions come across as callous, the emphatic character building allows readers to make sense of them as a reaction to the barrage of injustices embedded in her social fabric. The titular splintering happens when Tara turns avaricious from ambitious, and her insatiable desire becomes her prison. This is a textured, unflinching portrayal of a woman daring to live on her own terms in a society rigged against her.