House of Sand and Fog (Oprah's Book Club)
by Andre Dubus
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Book Summary Information
Author: Andre DubusEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Published: 2004-02-26
ISBN: 0099453924
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of House of Sand and Fog (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: Flawed Characters
Summary: 2 Stars
Structurally, the book was interesting. Several characters narrate the book, and the plot unfolds around a central issue--who owns a particular house. Who can live in the house? Who can sell the house? But, the major problem is that the characters are difficult to identify with or find sympathy for. All three of the central characters--Kathy Nicolo, Lester Burdon, and Colonel Behrani--remain the same. They are never changed by incredible circumstances--death, murder, suicide, inprisonment--they remain the same. Kathy has a chip on her shoulders that's never explained and Lester is just plain stupid. What motivates these characters? The reader never knows. Kathy gets herself into trouble blindly and so does Lester. The reader is left wondering how these two are bungling through life. Surely, every human has some kind of thought process that at least partially puts the world into focus--but Kathy and Lester never do. Even in jail, both Kathy and Lester are still thinking about sex with each other. Well, their worlds have fallen in on them and there is no opening in sight, and they are still thinking of a little sex. Unbelievable! Where is the introspection? When Kathy's relatives show up at the jail, she still has a chip on her shoulder. Why? What's happened between them? The writer's job is to give us some insights into human relationships. The insights are missing here. Colonel Behrani is a little easier to understand. He's outside his primary culture. He operates with a different world view than most of us, and thus we cut him some space. But even he doesn't change. His last coherent thought is that his daughter should sell the house for a certain amount. That's why the book ultimately seems flawed to me--the characters are unbelievable, unlikable, and ultimately are boring. I also agree with the reviewer who said the book is not for kids. I know there is an audio version for kids (unabridged)--but this book is definitely not for kids. The sex is raw, the drug additions exposed, the blind and stupid behavior accepted. I don't think this book will be much discussed in a decade.
Avid Reader
Summary of House of Sand and Fog (Oprah's Book Club)
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTUREIn this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to resotre his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon, a married man who finds himself falling in love with Kathy, becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.
Drawn by their competing desires to the same small house in the California hills and doomed by their tragic inability to understand one another, the three converge in an explosive collision course. Combining unadorned realism with profound empathy, House of Sand and Fog marks the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.
Oprah Book Club? Selection, November 2000: Andre Dubus III wastes no time in capturing the dark side of the immigrant experience in America at the end of the 20th century. House of Sand and Fog opens with a highway crew composed of several nationalities picking up litter on a hot California summer day. 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 has spent most of the money he brought with him from Iran on an apartment and furnishings that are too expensive, desperately trying to keep up appearances in order to enhance his daughter's chances of making a good marriage. Now the daughter is married, and on impulse he sinks his remaining funds into a house he buys at auction, thus unwittingly putting himself and his family on a trajectory to disaster. The house, it seems, once belonged to Kathy Nicolo, a self-destructive alcoholic who wants it back. What starts out as a legal tussle soon escalates into a personal confrontation--with dire results.
Dubus tells his tragic tale from the viewpoints of the two main adversaries, Behrani and Kathy. To both of them, the house represents something more than just a place to live. For the colonel, it is a foot in the door of the American dream; for Kathy, a reminder of a kinder, gentler past. In prose that is simple yet evocative, House of Sand and Fog builds to its inevitable denouement, one that is painfully dark but unfailingly honest. --Alix Wilber
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