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House Of Sand & Fog

by Andre III Dubus
House Of Sand & Fog

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  • Synopses & Reviews
  • Reading Group Guide
  • Read an Excerpt

ISBN13: 9780375727344
ISBN10: 0375727345
Condition: Standard


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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Colonel Massoud Amir Behrani was once a powerful and respected officer in the Shah of Iran's air force. Having fled the country with his family, he works by day spearing trash on California highways and by night as a clerk in a convenience store while deceiving his family into believing that he has a loftier job. Now, willing to risk the modest remainder of his fortune to restore his family's dignity, he buys a small house at a county auction, planning to sell it again for three or four times what he paid. But the house has been auctioned because of a bureaucratic error, and Behrani's fragile plans are jeopardized when Kathy Nicolo, the owner of the house, begins to protest the sale.

A recovering alcoholic and addict, Kathy is desperate to regain her only tie to stability — her home. In doing so, she enlists the help of Deputy Sheriff Lester Burdon, a married man who has fallen precipitously in love with her. As Kathy and Lester become obsessed with seeking justice by whatever means possible, the three characters converge on an explosive collision course. Combining unadorned realism with profound empathy, House of Sand and Fog is a devastating exploration of the American Dream gone awry.

Review

"House of Sand and Fog is one of the best American novels I've ever read." James Lee Burke, author of Heaven's Prisoners

Review

"[A]n enthralling tragedy....No villains here, but only precisely rendered proof that the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Kirkus Reviews

Review

"Dubus writes gorgeous prose with a noirish edge, holding his readers spellbound..." Donna Seaman, Booklist (Starred Review)

Synopsis

An American tragedy, House of Sand and Fog turns both the traditional immigrant success story and a modern love story upside down with a heartrending outcome in a master stroke of American realism and Shakespearean consequence.

Synopsis

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

In 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 restore 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.


About the Author

Andre Dubus III lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

Reading Group Guide

1. Do you sympathize more with Kathy Nicolo or with Colonel Behrani in part one of the novel? How does Dubus's use of alternating first-person narratives affect your response to, and involvement with, the characters?

2. The contested ownership of the house on Bisgrove Street is the fulcrum of the novel's plot. Who, in your opinion, owns the house once Behrani has paid cash for it? What would be a fair solution to the conflict?

3. Early in the novel Behrani buys himself a hat, which he says gives him "the appearance of a man with a sense of humor about living, a man who is capable to live life for the living of it" [p. 28]. Why is this a poignant thing for Behrani to wish for himself? Does he in fact take life too seriously?

4. What does Kathy's response to Nick's desertion reveal about her character? Why does Lester fall in love with Kathy? Is he better for her than Nick was?

5. Lester tells Kathy that he had wanted to become a teacher, but plans changed when Carol became pregnant. Is Lester's job in law enforcement a poor fit for him? Why did he once plant evidence in a domestic violence case?

6. Who, of the three main characters, is most complex? Who is most straightforward?

7. Where does the hostility between Lester and Behrani spring from? How do their memories—Lester's of his teenage girlfriend and her brother, Behrani's of his murdered cousin, Jasmeen—function to reveal the deep emotions that motivate action in this novel?

8. At what point do Kathy's and Lester's actions depart from the path of a simple desire for justice and move into something else? Why can neither of them seem to act rationally? Does Behrani act rationally?

9. Does Lester drink to break free of a sense of deadness, or to anesthetize himself? Why does he risk his family life as well as his professional life for his involvement with Kathy? Is he attempting to reinvigorate his life, or is he unconsciously seeking to destroy himself?

10. Note the epigraph to the novel, from "The Balcony" by Octavio Paz: "Beyond myself/ somewhere/ I wait for my arrival." How does it apply to the problems of self and alienation in each of the three main characters? Who has the clearest sense of his or her identity? What does it mean to have a clear sense of self?

11. Describing the success of her recovery program, Kathy says, "I had already stopped wanting what I'd been craving off and on since I was fifteen, for Death to come take me the way the wind does a dried leaf out on its limb" [p. 46]. How does the novel affect your response to the social and psychological issues of addiction, depression, and suicide? Do you find yourself being understanding or judgmental of Kathy as the stress of the conflict increases? Is she actually more of a survivor than she thinks she is?

12. Is Behrani's wife, Nadereh, an admirable character? Does her feminine role in a very traditional marriage reduce her importance as an actor in this drama? Does she have qualities that are missing in Behrani, Kathy, and Lester?

13. Behrani tells his son, "Remember what I've told you of so many Americans: they are not disciplined and have not the courage to take responsibility for their actions. If these people paid to us the fair price we are asking, we could leave and she could return. It is that simple. But they are like little chidren, son. They want things only their way" [p. 172]. How accurate is his perception of Americans? How well does it apply to Kathy and Lester?

14. How does House of Sand and Fog highlight the conflict between downwardly mobile Americans and upwardly mobile recent immigrants? What role does racism play in the reaction of Americans and foreigners to each other?

15. Why has Kathy avoided telling her mother and brother the truth about her situation? Does their meeting at the end of the novel resolve any of Kathy's difficult feelings about her place in the family?

16. Should Behrani be held responsible, on some level, for the crimes and excesses of the Shah's regime? Is he responsible for Esmail's fate?

17. Why does Behrani put on his military uniform at the climax of the novel?

18. What do you find most disturbing about the novel's denouement? If you find yourself imagining an alternate ending, what would that ending be?


3.8 4

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating 3.8 (4 comments)

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Kayla Andres , January 23, 2013
I had no idea what this book was about when I first picked it up, but I was captivated from the start!

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Laurie Beringer , January 03, 2012 (view all comments by Laurie Beringer)
Even if you've seen the movie, read this because it's sooo much better! I keep thinking about it and thinking about it.

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Beryl272 , January 10, 2008
I'm a senior in high school and this book was on my outside reading list so I chose it because I needed a book to connect to a previous book I'd read entitled 'The Bell Jar' to go along with its theme of depression. And I got what I was looking for. I have to agree with the comment below me and say that this book was completely infuriating because you say to yourself, okay, the characters are going to turn out to be dynamic, not static. They're going to come around and this book will leave you with a positive moral, but it just never comes and it leaves you with a huge dose of the truth instead of the sugar coated stories we're forced to read all throughout high school. So yes, I did get a book to accompany 'The Bell Jar's' theme of depression and suicide but I sure got more than I bargained for.

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peachesembarcadero , November 01, 2006
Possibly the only book I've ever read that I threw across the room the minute I was done. The only reason I kept reading was that I simply couldn't believe the wheel wasn't going to turn, that the characters weren't going to evolve, that somehow, from the depths of self-centeredness, there wouldn't be a reconciliation. No. Didn't happen. No one's soul became whole. No one moved in consciousness. There was one self-pitying implosion after another, all to the detriment of someone else. Of all the myriad things literature can bring to us to move us forward, utter stasis is what this one brings. Completely infuriating.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780375727344
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
11/01/2000
Publisher:
BALLANTINE BOOKS
Series info:
Oprah's Book Club (Paperback)
Language:
English
Pages:
368
Height:
8.02 in.
Width:
5.22 in.
Thickness:
.76 in.
Series:
Oprah's Book Club (Paperback)
Grade Range:
General/trade
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
2000
Series Volume:
106-632
UPC Code:
2800375727346
Author:
Andre Iii Dubus
Subject:
Home ownership
Subject:
Iranian Americans.
Subject:
Domestic fiction
Subject:
Literature
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Subject:
Immigrants
Subject:
San Mateo County

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This title in other editions

  • Used, Book Club Hardcover, $4.50
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