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House of Sand and Fog

3.7 of 5 stars 3.70 · rating details · 50,661 ratings · 2,488 reviews

When Kathy, a young recovering alcoholic recently separated from her husband, fails to a open a series of tax letters that have been sent to her in error, the State of California seizes the house she and her brother have inherited from her father. The State sells the house at auction to Behrani, a former Iranian Air Force officer. Unable to parley his skills into a job in...more

Paperback, 368 pages

Published February 26th 2004 by Vintage (first published February 17th 1999)

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Mar 25, 2011 Jimmy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Andre Dubus III's second novel, House of Sand and Fog was adapted to film in 2003 by a Ukrainian-Americana director by the name of Vadim Perelman. Luckily, Perelman enlisted the help of Roger Deakins A.S.C., who's really just a wizard behind the camera. Also, Deakins is the man partially responsible for why most of the films by the Coen's look so inimical and striking in that trademark, neo-noir way that they do. He's also quite talented at dancing around landscapes and interiors with his camera...more Andre Dubus III's second novel, House of Sand and Fog was adapted to film in 2003 by a Ukrainian-Americana director by the name of Vadim Perelman. Luckily, Perelman enlisted the help of Roger Deakins A.S.C., who's really just a wizard behind the camera. Also, Deakins is the man partially responsible for why most of the films by the Coen's look so inimical and striking in that trademark, neo-noir way that they do. He's also quite talented at dancing around landscapes and interiors with his camera in such a way that the characters seem almost like magical wraiths. Kingsley's tactfully understated performance helps a bit, but between an all-too liberal use of fog machines, and an oppressively swelling musical score the film is forced along as a excessive exhibition of charged melodrama, and clichés about the American Dream. Then again, Perelman's adaptation is a fairly literal reenactment of the story.

Details seem fairly important to this particular tale because Dubus III is more or less prodding the reader to come to some sort of moral conclusion. Again, they seem important to the story, but they aren't always terribly consistent. To begin with, there is Kathy Nicolo. What we know about her barely takes up a page; her husband recently left her, they were recovering drug addicts. She's now living in the coastal town of Corona, in a house that was left to her by her father, and she cleans other people's houses in order to make ends-meet. That's about the bulk of the information that the reader is given at the onset. The conflict that begins the story is that the county is auctioning off her house due to delinquent business tax payments because, you know, she's a recovering addict; they never open their mail, right? She's hastily evacuated from her house one foggy morning, and begins to take last-second, desperate legal actions.

Meanwhile, Colonel Mahsoud Behrani, a former SAVAK (Sāzemān-e Ettela'āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar) - basically the Shah's secret police, a nasty little organization, even by secret organization standards - member who fled to the United States when the Iranian Monarchy was overthrown by Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iranian Revolution in the late 70's. Mr. Behrani has been working on a road crew in the Bay Area, as well as at a convenience store at night. He does this in order to keep up the illusion and appearance that his family is still living as luxuriously as they did in their homeland. Noticing an ad in the paper for an ocean-side bungalow that is being auctioned off at a ridiculously low price, Behrani sees his standard-American-Dream-type opportunity to quit working and manipulate the real-estate market by buying auctioned off homes and selling them at four-times what he originally paid. And really, there's nothing wrong with that ... or is there? Anyway, he buys it, and quickly begins remodeling it, with the intention of moving in autumn. It's summer, correct?

So, Ms. Nicolo might be a pathetic recovering drug-addict, but it turns out that there is no reason that she should have paid a business tax in the first place, or rather, the county goofed on the exact address; the details in the book get a little hazy. There is another passage that confusingly describes it as a mere $500 property tax. Regardless, the county had no right to auction off her house, so her lawyer threatens to sue. The county tries to rescind the sale, but it's too late, and Behrani is not budging. He perceives this as a blunder on the part of foolish American bureaucracy, and feels that Ms. Nicolo must take it up with the county. Aware of the fact that he can quadruple his profit by selling it himself, he only agrees to sell it back to her for that amount. Kathy can sue the state, but that will take months, she's living out of her car, and well, she believes that it's still her house.

Taking pity on this hapless female, knight-in-shining-armor Deputy Lester Burdon, the officer that came to Kathy's door on that fateful foggy day, has taken a liking to her, despite the fact that he's a father of two and still married. Apparently, he's been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, and this downtrodden, homeless, recovering drug-addict* is exactly the woman he needed to help him realize how much of a domestic zombie he had been all this time. This is where things begin to get really goofy. Kathy has already been making too many visits to the house. Behrani becomes aware of this, turns her away, and obstinately refuses to believe that he should give up the home for what he originally paid. After years of service Burdon suddenly becomes a loose cannon for Ms. Nicolo's sake; one particular visit illustrates his racism (well, you could call it racism, it's hardly that convincing in the book), and the worst possible results occur.

Dubus III takes some liberties with what is an otherwise straightforward narrative; nothing too liberal really. He begins by switching back and forth between the first-person perspectives of Colonel Behrani and Kathy Nicolo. It's clearly an attempt to offer a balanced account of the moral conflict of the story. After part two, he switches to third-person narration, and intermittently returns to Burdon, Behrani, and Nicolo as the tension builds. The prose style is mostly straightforward American realism, nothing too minimal, but nothing terribly nuanced either. Voicing for Behrani, he's probably most at his most compelling as a stylist, but he has a terrible habit of running headlong into mundane details, mostly irrelevant to the story. Many of the log cabin scenes read like lackadaisical journal entries. As he must have felt somewhat awkward, telling part of the story from an Iranian-American point-of-view, he plays it safe, tossing in the occasional stylistic riff, seemingly a result of a sufficient amount of research. The important thing here is that Dubus III does manage to avoid a bias of any specific character's perspective, thus strengthening the conversational aspect of his moral storytelling capabilities.

So then, in the end, is Dubus III suggesting that this is a small story of the complications inherent in pursuing the American Dream? He seems to suggest that it can be profitable for some, and not so much for others; the one's that don't profit. There is also a familiar thematic quality found in the characters of Nicolo and Burdon (who are more or less suggested to be the "bad" guys here) that was noticeable in his first book The Cage Keeper and Other Stories, people who could only be described as the relatively well-intentioned in society who sometimes end up falling through the cracks. Usually these people are ex-cons or addicts who realize what they've done wrong, yet who are also seemingly predisposed toward screwing up their lives, no matter how much they enact change, even for brief periods of time. Actually, Dubus III's humanitarian preoccupations seem reminiscent of Hubert Selby Jr. and Flannery O'Connor, in that he shares a similar preoccupation with the obstinacy of human depravity. In the case of certain characters of his, they can't help but continuously fail, and he wants to see them do so; it doesn't seem to hurt that they also manage to bring level-headed or impressionable people down with them.

Culturally speaking, this is a dodgy book. Dubus III had very specific reasons for choosing an ex-SAVAK member as one of his main characters. To add a weak-willed white female character such as Kathy to the story seems to indicate that he is beckoning the reader to make a seriously difficult judgment call concerning who the villain really is here; whether Ms. Nicolo is simply a weak woman, prone to blaming other people for her own irresponsibility, or whether it's that Behrani is a greedy misogynist; a human relic of an inhumane empire that was trumped by the Iranian peoples' refusal to live in constant fear. It could be that while Kathy doesn't do anything wrong or immoral at the beginning of the story, her proclivity for irresponsible life choices, eventually turns a small mess, into an enormous one. Either that, or substance abuse is to blame, but Dubus III doesn't seem to dwell on that specific issue intensely enough. And there is also the issue of Bahrani’s values, which could hardly be described as sympathetic to women; this is apparent in his various descriptions of Kathy throughout the book; the epithet "mother whore" is used quite a bit. He's also been know to physically assault his own wife. Actually, Lester Burdon's character doesn't display much more sympathy for women or human life at all really. But it would hardly be accurate to say that misogyny is the true villain here. And in a very Selbyesque fashion, these three characters become so obsessed with their respective pursuits of happiness, that their purported selflessness is really something of a lie in the end. It's just difficult to tell who Dubus III is siding with, or who's in the right. Not that all novels should have such a morally tight conclusion, but toward the end, the reader can't help but wonder if he is even aware of ever having a specific moral point to begin with.

*Although, a nymphlike Jennifer Connely plays Kathy in the Perelman film, which makes it a little more convincing.

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Feb 21, 2008 Marta rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

uuuugh i hated this book!!!!!! BUT before i start trashing it, i'll say that there is one thing i liked about it - the author's ability to give two completely different viewpoints and make the reader understand and empathize with them both. all i'll say about the plot is that it's about two people fighting for the ownership of a bungalow (that in itself should have stopped me from picking up this book - boringgggggg). i found myself rooting for each character at different times, for which i give...more

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Jun 12, 2007 Sammy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: b-the-good

This book was really good. Lol. Yeah, I put that so eloquently and explained my reasoning really well, didn't I? But no, really, this book was really good. Let's clear my only problem with it out of the way before I start on the stuff I truly enjoyed about the novel...

Slow start. That's my only problem. It really took a while for things to kick up, but once they did it was a very exciting read. And even though I didn't like the slowness of the beginning part of the novel, I wouldn't have had it...more This book was really good. Lol. Yeah, I put that so eloquently and explained my reasoning really well, didn't I? But no, really, this book was really good. Let's clear my only problem with it out of the way before I start on the stuff I truly enjoyed about the novel...

Slow start. That's my only problem. It really took a while for things to kick up, but once they did it was a very exciting read. And even though I didn't like the slowness of the beginning part of the novel, I wouldn't have had it any other way because Dubus uses most of the beginning to set up situations and characters and make them all three demensional and believable, which was something I really enjoyed about the book.

What was interesting about the book was the fact there was no clear protagonist in the idea of good guy vs. bad guy, which could have easily happened. Dubus has us constantly switching perspectives between our two main characters so we see behind their reasoning and begin to aggree with them. But before we can begin to side too much with one character, we're back with the other and beginning to side with them until we switch back. It may sound confusing right now, but Dubus does this gently so the switches are easy to follow.

I would be interested to hear from those of you who have read this book about who you side with. Behrani? Or Kathy? I myself, once I finished the book, had no definite person I sided with. I thought they both deserved the house and both had very good reasons for having it. But then again I thought that neither should have the house, either because of their past actions or their current actions.

The second part of the book was as fast as the first part was slow. So it sort of made up for the lack of action in part one.

All together the book was wonderful, with characters you could sympathize with if not related too. Well-rounded and fully believable with their flaws. Brilliant plot and absolutely stunning writing. If you start to read this and find it boring at first, I will convince you to keep on going, because like I said before, what the first part may lack, the second part will more than make up for it.(less)

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Apr 20, 2007 Shira Karp rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People who like a lot of character development

I loved this book. It was amazing. I never thought I would get so wrapped up in a story where the main character was actually a house (or should I say a "bungalow" as that is how it is mostly referred to in the book). In the first few chapters it seemed obvious who the good guy and who the bad guy in the story were, but I quickly found that line blurred and throughout the whole book I didn't know who to root for, I wanted them both to win. The reason I only gave this book four stars instead of t...more

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Jan 07, 2009 Malbadeen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: "non-readers"

Recommended to Malbadeen by: every goodwill/salvation army/Value Village shelf in the pdx me

Okay, now that two people who's opinion I typically admire and generally like have told me how much they "loved" this book, I have to fess up...I didn't LOVE it. I thought it was good. I think Dubus is amazing at voice and plot is definitely exciting but about 1/2 way into, my brain started kerplunking over passages and I felt like I was watching a mini-series and I was just anxious for it to be over.

The first kerplunk was when Lester went to the woods to cut fire wood. Hellooooooooo! everyone...more Okay, now that two people who's opinion I typically admire and generally like have told me how much they "loved" this book, I have to fess up...I didn't LOVE it. I thought it was good. I think Dubus is amazing at voice and plot is definitely exciting but about 1/2 way into, my brain started kerplunking over passages and I felt like I was watching a mini-series and I was just anxious for it to be over.

The first kerplunk was when Lester went to the woods to cut fire wood. Hellooooooooo! everyone knows that you can't just cut wood and use it the same day. You've got to let it dry for a season. geesh.

And when Kathy was describing him, "Once we got all the logs in a pile in front of the porch" ("green" logs, I might add) "Lester took off his shirt and started splitting them with the ax........The sweat was dripping off is nose and mustache" ("mustache"-ed policman...gross!)..."and he smiled and thanked me,....leaned over and gave me a short wet kiss....His shoulders and back were gleaming with sweat, and veins were starting to come out in his long arms. sometimes he would let out a littl grunt as he swng the ax down onto the end of the log...."

so here I am reading a perfectly respectable book about class systems, isolation, and loneliness and next thing you know there's sweaty mustaches, grunting and fake fires.

Then, a few pages later Kathy is describing her bathing in the creek, "I pulled off my top and bra, stepped out of my shorts and panties and waded out in the cold water and dived in."

oh brooooooooother! she is so NOT the kind of woman that would refer to her undergarments as "panties". Apparently Dubus realized this as well because he later had her refer to them as underwear. I suppose he's entitled to take a little walk down fantasy lane with the characters he's created, I'm just saying it took a little away from the story for me.

All that being said, I thought the hospital scene was amazing and the Colonels actions made me feel like retching (I mean that as a compliment to the author).

This is a book I would/will/have recommend to people that say they're "not readers". I think it's compelling enough to keep people tied in and, with the few exceptions listed above, written with quality language.

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Aug 07, 2008 Mary Gibbons rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The House of Sand and Fog was a book that I had high expectations for. The reviews for this book have been above average, and (which I didn't find out until after I read) it was chosen for Oprah's Book Club. While I typically act high brow towards anything that is touted by the O, she has chosen to like some classics that I have, 'On the Road' being one of them. Though I don't know how the typical Oprah watcher could really get in to this... that is not the point.

Anyways, back to Dubas' book. I...more

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Jun 05, 2007 Siria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century, american-fiction

This book could have been tighter towards the end; it gets a little bit predictable, and meanders to a close rather than ends. That aside, this is still an incredibly powerful piece of work. It's not a light book to get through; there are no heroes and there are very few innocents. Behrani, Kathy and Lester, three of the main characters of the novel, are all some of the most finely carved characters I've read in a long time. None of them are perfect; they are all fallible, none of them are even...more

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Mar 20, 2008 Shannon rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: my worst enemy

Recommended to Shannon by: Oprah - I should have known better

Shelves: the-big-stink

I have never had such a horribly visceral reaction to a novel. The story unfolded tragically but the writing unraveled something worse. The author only succeeded in presenting two sides of a story equally - I didn't care about either one, or the little abode (widows walk or not).

To torture myself further, I watched the movie. I am a fan of Ben Kingsley and couldn't possibly see how he would go blindly into such a disappointing set up. You know how the movie is never as good as the book - this is...more

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Jun 13, 2007 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

The reason I love this book is because it beautifully presents a problem from two sides, then let's the reader decide which side he or she supports. This isn't foxnews. The author transitions from chapter to chapter between the two main characters, using wonderful language for each, and then lets the reader decide. Neither of the characters were perfect, but neither could be classified as "bad guys". Andre Dubois III is my favorite modern author, his short stories are also amazing.

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May 02, 2013 Sharon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This story posed an interesting dilemma. Due to a mistake in the county tax office, a woman is evicted from her home and it is sold at auction for a third of it's value. What would you do if you were the purchaser? Would you simply sell it back to the county for the same amount? That is the remedy the county proposed. But Colonel Behrani, the man who purchased the home, is fighting for his family's survival. A recent immigrant from Iran, he has been unable to find a decent job and they have grad...more

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Mar 08, 2009 iam marked it as the-freezer · review of another edition

I read it up to page 94. Started getting a little worried that this would turn out to be one of those books I might not want to actually read. There aren't many of those. I can handle suspense, gore, & even on very very very rare occasions I can even read a book with Zombies in it. Sometimes though, being a Daddy's girl, I just can't handle seeing (or reading) a certain type of character deal with certain types of issues. Anyway, I decided to read the last two pages just in case this thing h...more

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Aug 05, 2008 Jillian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: in-2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I read another review on here before I read the book, and the person said that the book was "boring" because this was just two people fighting over a "house."

Actually, it's much more than that, and I thought the house served as a symbol for each person involved. This story gave the reader an inside look into an immigrant family, showing that they are "just like us," fighting for a place in this sometimes disgusting country. The house for Mr. Behrani served as a symbol of "making it" in America....more

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Jun 19, 2008 Joyce rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reading this book is like being frozen to the spot while you're watching a train wreck about to happen. It's an emotional wringer. Ultimately, I have to say it's 3.5 stars out of 5. (SPOILER ALERT) I did pop out of the narrative a few times, mostly due to goofy stuff (such as inaccuracies about the SF Bay Area; eg, having BART in Pacifica?!). But really, the basic premise of the novel isn't plausible. I couldn't see the county evicting somebody one day and then auctioning the place off the very...more

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Jun 15, 2008 Natalie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a phenomenal, insightful, sad book. The author tells a compelling story about cultural differences and how our assumptions about others are so often wrong. When I saw the movie version of this book years ago, it blew me away, and I am still haunted by both the story and the images of the film.

However, having seen the movie first actually affected my ability to immerse myself in the book. It took me a very long time to read this. Sometimes knowing the ending doesn't matter, but for some r...more

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Dec 02, 2007 Rosie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel is a brilliant explication of what can happen when two desperate people's lives collide and become entwined. Dubus introduces us to two characters who couldn't be more at odds - Kathy Niccolo, a Saugus, MA native who has moved to California to escape shades of her drug-addled, under-achieving past, and Massoud Behrani, a hardworking, regimented ex-Colonel who fled Iran after a political uprising, who is struggling to maintain a semblance of dignity in a country that has little opportu...more

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Aug 08, 2007 Leah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This starts off as a simple enough story about an Iranian immgrant struggling to make good in American, but Behrani's world quickly becomes complicated when he purchases a home at a county tax auction. Interestingly told from three perspectives: Behrani's, Kathy's (the original homeowner) and a random narrator who gives us the whereabouts of Kathy's cop boyfriend Les, House of Sand and Fog is quick moving (as the book jacket suggests), but I often felt while reading that the movie would be a be...more

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Nov 09, 2007 Celeste Miller rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is definitely a page turner or, as one of the reviews said, "unputdownable." What makes the conflict between the Kathy, a down-on-her-luck former coke addict scraping by as a house cleaner and Colonel Behrani, a formerly wealthy official in the Shah of Iran's administration is that, bigoted as both may be, they are also both sympathetic characters. Both have formerly been many things and are still reeling from their pasts while trying to carve out a future.

As I began part two, I felt the wi...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Sylvie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I received this from a co-worker who couldn't get into it, proclaiming it slow and boring. I vaguely remembered the movie and was worried I might agree. But instead of being the lit fiction I was dreading, it was actually a fairly compelling literary thriller. It is also a great example of a story narrated from multiple viewpoints where both are presented in a sympathetic way. So kudos for that Mr. Dubus. However, I do have a major bone to pick with the author and/or editor: While the Bay Area s...more

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Dec 10, 2007 Christina rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 23, 2008 Tracey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'll spare reviewing the entire plot, since I see many posters have done a fine job already.

My thought through this book was that Kathy was responsible for most of the problems in this story. She was the one who ignored the tax notices (having answered them would have fixed the clerical error), she was the one who went to the Iranians home after being told not to by her lawyer, and she didn't stand up to her boyfriend when the situation went completely out of control.
Granted, her entire life wa...more

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Feb 13, 2009 David rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Too many paragraphs like "Around noon, I picked up my mail at the post office, then went to a shopping center sandwich shop to sift through it all while I ate. It was only ten days' worth but it took up all of my table, and I put it in two piles, one for the trash can on the way out, one to keep. The trash pile was mostly junk mail, the other was bills: car insurance, gas, my final phone, electric. The electric bill was the most recent and I opened it and read the cutoff date for the last billin...more

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Jul 12, 2007 Linda rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ugh. This book drove me batty. I have a like-hate relationshop with this book. I was so annoyed while reading it because of the characters. I understand that some books have characters that you do not like or cannot relate to, but there was just something about them that made me uninterested in them. Yet, the book stayed with me when I finished it. Then it intrigued me enough to make me rent the movie verson. I have to think about how many stars to give it. I'm so conflicted. It is a short read,...more

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Aug 07, 2007 Patricia Elizabeth rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: abandoned

It took less than a chapter for me to realize this was not a book I wanted to finish. The entire time I was reading that chapter I felt as if I were watching a car wreck. It's not as if I demand a book be all happiness and sunshine but I didn't get the feeling that there was going to be anything redeeming about this book for me. As much as I appreciate that Oprah has been instrumental in getting people to read, it seems to me that so many of her books are absolute downers. I don't see how people...more

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Oct 12, 2008 Roger marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: what-jared-left-behind

funny enough, i bought this book at a big book sale at the Barrington Public Library. haven't cracked it open yet, and now i've inherited another copy from Jared.

i'm keeping his copy. over the Oprah's Book Club logo, there is a self-made sticker that has written in blue pen:
The Tokishini Book Club

and then perpendicular to that in black pen:
Sponsored by Dr. Phil

based on the used bookstores this copy's been in, it's been $14, then $7 and then 75 cents. it is a little beat up.

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Jan 13, 2013 Book Concierge rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It starts with a bureaucratic mistake. Massoud Behrani, formerly part of the Shah of Iran’s elite inner circle, is working two menial jobs in an effort to maintain a semblance of the wealth and status his family once enjoyed. His family is blissfully unaware of their circumstances, but he knows that he cannot maintain the charade for long and must find a way to achieve the American dream. He sees his opportunity in a newspaper advertisement for a sheriff’s auction – a nice bungalow near the ocea...more It starts with a bureaucratic mistake. Massoud Behrani, formerly part of the Shah of Iran’s elite inner circle, is working two menial jobs in an effort to maintain a semblance of the wealth and status his family once enjoyed. His family is blissfully unaware of their circumstances, but he knows that he cannot maintain the charade for long and must find a way to achieve the American dream. He sees his opportunity in a newspaper advertisement for a sheriff’s auction – a nice bungalow near the ocean is being sold for back taxes. Kathy Nicolo, struggling to remain in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction and recently abandoned by her husband, is evicted from her home over the tax dispute. She believed she had straightened it out months previously, so ignored the continued letters from the county, and now two sheriff’s deputies have arrived to take possession of the house. One of those deputies is Lester Burdon, who is touched by Kathy’s plight and becomes obsessed with helping her get her house back. The power struggle between these characters forms the core of this gripping novel.

What really gets to me about this work is that you have three people who all want the same thing – a better life for themselves. Dubus slowly reveals these characters and why they are so fragile, proud, confused, hopeless, tenacious, and reckless. Their inability to see any way but the ONE way they have each chosen is what sets up the inevitable tragedy. Each firmly believes s/he is correct and they are almost completely unable to understand one another. Actions taken as a result of impulse and poor judgment are compounded by further actions and reactions.

Dubus changes perspective regularly throughout the novel. So we have insight into each of these characters, their back stories, their dreams and motivations. While I find that I had the most empathy for Colonel Behrani, there were times when I also felt empathy for Kathy or even Lester. And, conversely, there were times I wanted to slap some sense into each of them (mostly Lester and Kathy, but also Behrani). I had seen the movie so knew what was coming, but still felt the sense of suspense.

My only complaint is with the ending. This is probably because of my having seen the movie, which ended with Colonel Behrani … a very powerful image. I recognize why Dubus gave each character an opportunity to reflect on what had happened at the end of the book, but I still wish it had ended about 30 pages earlier.
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Jan 16, 2009 Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2007-audio-books, 2007-general-fiction

House of Sand and Fog, by Andre Dubus III A.
Produced by Harper Audio and narrated partially by the author himself. Downloaded from audible.com.

Three people are totally obsessed with owning the same house. First, we have Colonel Bearani, who has lived in this country for many years now, but has never gotten used to the fact that he had to give up his upper class status and military position in Iran when the government of the Shah fell. He does laborer work, such as picking up garbage in the parks...more House of Sand and Fog, by Andre Dubus III A.
Produced by Harper Audio and narrated partially by the author himself. Downloaded from audible.com.

Three people are totally obsessed with owning the same house. First, we have Colonel Bearani, who has lived in this country for many years now, but has never gotten used to the fact that he had to give up his upper class status and military position in Iran when the government of the Shah fell. He does laborer work, such as picking up garbage in the parks, but he leaves home for work every day dressed in his finest clothes, and then changes into his work clothes at a gas station. He and his wife and son live in a posh apartment near other rich friends from Iran, and he never lets on he doesn’t have as much money as them, or that he works as a laborer. Then one day he picks up a newspaper and learns that the county is selling a house for unpaid taxes. The house is going for sale for $45,000, about a third of what a house in that part of town would be worth. He takes $45,000 of his remaining cash, and buys the house at the auction. He has done research, and believes that he could do some things to improve the house and then sell it for three times what he bought it for. Then he will invest in other real estate, and this is the way he’ll get his dignity back.

Second, we have Kathy Micolo who inherited this self same house with her brother when their father died. She moved into the house and remained there when her husband divorced her. Her family, who is on the east coast, don’t know about the divorce or what a mess she’s making of her life. She is depressed and hasn’t opened mail for months. Then one day she opens her door and there is the sheriff to evict her because her house has been sold for unpaid taxes. In fact she finds out it has already been sold, and the new family wants to move in. In one day she has to move out. A deputy from the county sheriff’s office, Lester Burdon, takes a special interest and helps her get moved out. She contends that she has paid the taxes. The county admits it has made a mistake in selling her house. But now it is owned by this Iranian family, and the colonel refuses to sell it back to the county. The county can’t make him give it back. He intends to keep the house and get a profit on selling it. Kathy is as determined to get the house back as it is all she has.

And finally we have Lester Bourdon, the deputy who finds himself falling in love with Kathy and becomes involved, to the detriment of his own job, in helping her get the house back. These conflicting motives are on a collision path, and the result of these inflexible perspectives leads to a very explosive conclusion. A very good book, and the author narrates his part of it well.

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Jan 07, 2009 Ruth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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Jan 03, 2009 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

House of Sand and Fog tells the story of three characters from extremely different walks of life whose paths converge unexpectedly due to a struggle over a bungalow in the foggy hills of the California coast. Kathy Nicolo, a recovering drug addict, loses the house due to a bureaucratic error and Colonel Massoud Behrani, an Iranian refugee, compelled to fight for a dignified life in America for his family, purchases it in an auction held by the county. Lester Burdon, a Duputy Sheriff who meets...more House of Sand and Fog tells the story of three characters from extremely different walks of life whose paths converge unexpectedly due to a struggle over a bungalow in the foggy hills of the California coast. Kathy Nicolo, a recovering drug addict, loses the house due to a bureaucratic error and Colonel Massoud Behrani, an Iranian refugee, compelled to fight for a dignified life in America for his family, purchases it in an auction held by the county. Lester Burdon, a Duputy Sheriff who meets Kathy as a result of all this, finds himself in love with Kathy and bent on helping her reclaim her home. As the characters become more and more blinded by their own needs and ambitions, their paths head in a dangerous direction, and their inability to understand each other and each other's plights only throws them perilously toward reckless and impulsive behavior.
Admittedly, this novel is slow in the beginning and a bit hard to get into, but as the characters connect, the novel picks up speed and draws the reader in. The author's language is poetic and captivating and he maintains an incredible level of detail in his descriptions, so that all senses are accounted for.

The story is told in three different POVs (first person: Kathy, first person: Behrani, and third person Lester) and Dubus switches perspective in each chapter. At first, this was a bit confusing to me, as it took me a minute to acclimate to the new voice, but after thirty pages or so, it flows naturally. The characters are all careful observers of their surroundings, and Dubus' unique POV shifts emphasize how different these people are from each other as we note the contrasting views on the same observations. I appreciated the opportunity to get into the head of all three characters because it helps explain the motivations behind the actions that would otherwise be tough to justify or understand. The voices of each character are believable and the shifts intensify the suspense of the novel.

For the most part, I found this to be a unique and compelling novel, but it does grow extremely dark in some parts, which at times feels as though it's too much to take. It is good to be aware that going into this book you are not entering a clean and easy read. There was also a nagging question in my head throughout the novel - there seemed to be ways all the characters could have avoided the collision their lives take, but it wasn't enough to take away from the enjoyment the book brought me.

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Dec 20, 2008 Roseann Marcus is currently reading it · review of another edition

Disclaimer: This is not my review . just the synopsis of the book from Amazon.com

Massoud Amir Behrani, a former colonel in the Iranian military under the Shah, reflects on his job-search efforts since arriving in the U.S. four years before: "I have spent hundreds of dollars copying my credentials; I have worn my French suits and my Italian shoes to hand-deliver my qualifications; I have waited and then called back after the correct waiting time; but there is nothing." The father of two, Behrani...more

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Dec 01, 2008 bookczuk rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookcrossing

I'd read another copy of this book when it first came out. Here is my journal entry from that book:

What a powerful book! I was compelled to keep reading it, even though I could see no possible outcome that would be good. The four main characters were all well crafted, illustrative of the many different ways we can be self destructive. They are very real...and sometimes I just wanted to scream at them for their myopic views. The author chose to shift the narrative mostly between 2 of the characte...more

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About Andre Dubus III

Andre Dubus III is the author of Townie, The Garden of Last Days, and House of Sand and Fog (an Oprah Book Club pick and a finalist for the National Book Award). His father, Andre Dubus, was a noted short story writer. Andre Dubus III lives with his family north of Boston.

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“it's almost easier being down and alone than when you re up and no one s there to share the view with you” — 13 people liked it

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