House of Sand and Fog

I've never felt more betrayed by a book. I was immediately sucked in from the beginning, as I found Colonel Behrani's story to be utterly compelling. I admired his sense of discipline and loyalty to his culture, and his laser-like focus on making a good life for his family in San Francisco, working two crummy low-wage jobs while attempting to maintain his dignity in the face of so many setbacks upon first moving to America. I loved reading about the Behrani family's Iranian traditions and the descriptions of their belongings and the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed in their home country. I also felt that the Colonel had a perfect right to buy and continue living in Kathy's house, which is why I suppose I became so immediately irritated with idiotic Kathy and her pathetic little fanboy, Lester.

--- big spoilers beyond this point ---

Kathy is obnoxious. Kathy is downright stupid. She *knew* that there had been a problem with the county regarding her oh-so-precious house, but she's such an idiot that she threw away county mail for MONTHS, leading up to her eviction (improbable, perhaps, but I was willing to accept this for the sake of the plot, as it was already a pretty thin premise to swallow anyway). Kathy doesn't know why her alcoholic husband left her. Kathy doesn't do much of anything throughout the entire story other than chain-smoke and feel sorry for herself because her family views her as a pathetic, drug-addicted failure at life, which she is. Every single decision she makes is lazy, irresponsible, and completely self-centered. Even when she eventually consults a lawyer about the sale of her home, she doesn't even listen to what the lawyer says because she's so busy mooning over seeing her loser ex-husband's signature on a statement ("Connie Walsh said a few things and I looked up and nodded at her like I'd heard." -- p. 78) Incidents like this made me feel like she didn't even deserve the house in the first place, and I was happy when it turned out that the Colonel had absolutely no legal obligation to her, as her beef should be with the county, not him.

So when she drives by the house and screams profanities at the Colonel in front of potential buyers, when she sics Lester on the family and he goes over and actually threatens them like some sort of skinny mustachioed attack dog, I felt absolutely no sympathy for him or Kathy. Lester is, of course, the police officer who magically fell in love with Kathy upon first sight and became irrationally infatuated with her, immediately cheating on his wife and two children with her at the first opportunity. He's also falsified evidence while on duty, and in both incidences, he feels as though his actions were justified, the first because he's no longer sexually attracted to his wife, the second because he was ensuring that a longtime domestic abuser got thrown in jail. What really frustrated me about Lester was that we didn't get much backstory on him until the very end, and I feel like this was written hurriedly to explain why such a normal-seeming, non-violent, wimpy guy suddenly snaps, bashes through a glass door and holds three innocent people hostage just because he thinks his girlfriend might be in danger.

And what was Kathy's role in that particular scenario? She was so insecure that Lester was going to leave her and go back to his family that she fantasizes about burning the Behrani's house down to the point where she buys matches and a gas can, spends the entire day drinking, points a gun at an innocent gas station employee and ends up leaving without any gasoline, and then drives to the house with Lester's gun and tries to shoot herself with it in the driveway. What does the Colonel do? He gently rescues her. He welcomes her into the home. His sweet wife takes care of Kathy and cooks her a meal. Kathy stubbornly tries to kill herself again in the bathroom. Again, the Colonel's wife saves her life and tries to help her. And when Lester couldn't find Kathy at their primitive little love-hovel, he goes to the house, sees her car in the driveway and goes berserk. I really can't believe that we, as readers, are supposed to sympathize with Kathy and Lester just as much as the Behrani family. What a joke.

I was outraged by the ending. Dubus killed off the whole Behrani family and I hated him for it. Also, the writing was pretty sloppy and repetitive. I don't know how many of Kathy's sentences started with, "I lit a cigarette..." but I would bet the number is over 100. For being such a supposedly destitute woman, she sure can afford to smoke like a chimney. There are also several of Lester and Kathy's sex scenes which are crudely described, and don't seem to serve the plot at all, though I'd have to say the worst is a dream Kathy has in which she ends up actually encased in Lester's dried seminal fluids. I mean ... really?

But ... despite hating Kathy and Lester to the point of fury, despite being outraged at the ending, despite the amateurish writing style and the fact that the book is too long by easily 100 pages (or more), I'm still going to give the book three stars because I couldn't seem to put it down over the last two nights, and because I ended up caring so much about the Behrani family that I actually cried when they met their fates.

Ugh. It's so disappointing when a book has so much potential, and then just completely falls apart. I probably won't read another book by this author.

This is a terrific story. I'm perplexed by the marginal and even negative reviews. I enjoyed every page of this book. A reviewers said the key incident in the book is farfetched? Really? Have you ever tried to deal with local governments when it comes to property taxes?

If you like stories, you'll like this one. If you like really superior writing, you love this one.

Raw and hard to take, I still couldn't put the book down. Love was there, buried and literally reaching up out of the grave for one last glimmer of life. The characters in House of Sand and Fog are perfect mirrors to each other -- and enemies -- unable to see how alike they are. Optimistic curiosity and the brilliant prose that Dubus spins kept me reading, but the end only brought the tears that I'd been fighting -- for almost all of the previous pages. This story could be true in my country? I don't want to believe that. Yet, this story, with all of its passionate ignorance and selfish cruelty, could be true in my country. I highly recommend this book, but have tissue nearby, and maybe a prayer.

Life in general has enough drama and conflict in it. I read to decompress and escape for a little while each day. This book was not an escape, but more of a torture. I now vow to stop reading after the first three chapters if I am this unhappy with a book again.

This was a deep well of wallowing in self pity and expectation of something that never appeared.

Perhaps the author needs some anti-depressants. Then again, seeing the sales numbers, perhaps not.

If you want to be utterly depressed and feel like crap - read this book. I don't mind sad or dark books - but there has to be something redeeming about them, something that makes them worth reading. Whatever that is, this book doesn't have it.

This book aggravates me. Kathy Nicolo, a recovered
drug addict and a married Deputy Sheriff start a hot affaire.
Kathy owned a house and she lost it due to a mistake in the
tax office. The house is bought at auction by an Iranian Colonel.
The Colonel and his family are in exile and broke.
Now the plot thickens and also begins to lose it!
Kathy begins to drink again. Lester the sheriff officer impersonates an official from
the tax office in an attempt to help Kathy get her house back. The Colonel and his family plot
and plan to sell before Kathy can reclaim the house. So far the book has
been pretty good. But the whole thing goes to pot about page 175. It slows
to a snail's pace. All integrity is lost and a simple dilemma has evolved into
death, broken laws, and evil intent. From here the plot becomes so slow and
silly that I tried to read the end. I failed at this and had to go back and continue
reading from page 175. When I finally got to the end of the book I wished
I had stopped at page 175. The ending was not what I expected, the story
just quit. Maybe Andre Dubus plans to pick the story up in a sequel--- I won't read it,
I no longer care what happens to these dysfunctional people.

Loved it! One of the best books I've ever read. Incredibly suspenseful story and memorable characters.

Andre Dubus III's novel House of Sand and Fog (1999) was a New York Times bestseller, a finalist for The National Book Award, and the basis for an Oscar-nominated motion picture.

The Boston Globe described the novel as "a page-turner with a beating heart." The Washington Post Book World called it "Elegant and powerful . . . An unusual and volatile literary thriller." And James Lee Burke (no mean novelist himself) wrote that it is "stunning....No one who reads this novel will ever forget it. I have never felt so strongly about the talent of a young writer in my life. House of Sand and Fog is one of the best American novels I've ever read."

The bone of contention in this tale is a small hillside bungalow at 34 Bisgrove Street in the low-rent beach-town of Corona, California, south of San Francisco. A bureaucratic screw-up at the San Mateo County tax office confuses the owner's house for a house at 34 Biscove Street, whose owners were delinquent paying their taxes. This clerical incompetence leads to the owner's being evicted from her house, which was sold at auction.

In the past, Kathy Nicolo Lazaro had been a cocaine addict who snorted "white snakes" and she still struggles (unsuccessfully) with alcoholism. Her husband has left her, and now she has lost the house that she inherited from her deceased father. With her life spiraling out of control, Kathy desperately struggles to hold on to the one thing she has left.

Genob Sarhang Massoud Amir Behrani, a former colonel in the Iranian Imperial Air Force, is now the legal owner of the house, which he has purchased at auction at one-third its value, planning to resell at a huge profit. Formerly he had been a man of wealth and power in Tehran, with the ear of the Shah himself. But when the 1979 revolution swept Iran, Behrani, his wife Nadereh, their daughter Soraya, and their son Esmail, are put on a death list and forced to flee the country.

The plot thickens when Deputy Sheriff Lester Victor Burdon, a married cop, falls head over heels in love with Kathy Nicolo, and several steamy encounters occur. Burdon, crossing far over the line, is determined, by hook or crook, to help Kathy recover her house. Their erotic liaison leads to a horrific climax reminiscent of Greek and Shakespearean tragedies.

If sad stories make you cry, avoid reading House of Sand and Fog. But if you're looking for a powerful, well-written tale, this one is for you.

My husband and I -- both English teachers at 2-year colleges -- listened to this on book-on-CD in the car on a long vacation. What started out as a good story *idea* quickly deteriorated as we we listened to some of the worst writing we have ever seen (well, heard) published. It's as though the publisher said to the author "now be sure to include some sort of simile in every single paragraph." The vast majority of those similes made absolutely no sense -- perhaps the writer was translating ideas from Farsi and they just "didn't translate"? It got to the point where our laughs turned to groans as yet another and another and another spilled forth.

Must of the book is "filler." It should have been half the length. There were many times where --since we were listening on CD -- we would skip ahead to the next section and the author was still writing about walking down the pathway in the woods! And ridiculous sentences like the kiwi on the plate -- "all green with little black seeds" -- really? What next? "An orange-- all rough on the outside and juicy on the inside" ?

The main characters are all unlikable. If I had to pick either Kathy or Mr. Behrani to survive I would have chosen Mr. Behrani, though who could possibly have liked him either? Certainly not his wife or daughter-- they seemed to keep as far from him as possible. Kathy is simply a whiny strung-out 30-something -- I can have no sympathy for someone acting19 when she is 36. Forget the cop -- he was a creep from his first scene.

This book could have been good -- with an editor who knew the importance of style and length. Too bad this was not the case. Not recommended.

The first part of the book I must admit I enjoyed. I'm giving it two stars for the way it rolls along. Until the second half.

Lester Burdon is a man who was bullied during his childhood. He never had the guts to retaliate, eventually hiding behind a police uniform because supposedly he wanted to help other bullied people. His record with the police department is spotless, although he does admit to framing one guy who was regularly beating his wife.

In part two Lester becomes totally the opposite, quickly becoming a bully himself. He barely knows Kathy when he starts muscling in on the Behrani family. It doesn't make sense. His sudden complete change of character is illogical. If he's a gentle man at heart, as Kathy/the author keep droning on about, I don't believe he would have even gotten involved with her at all, especially as she quickly admits she's an ex-drug addict and erstwhile drunk. Lester would have stayed in his loveless marriage until his adored children were old enough to understand why he was leaving. He may have tried to help Kathy but certainly wouldn't have set in motion the ridiculous chain of events that ensued because he did. He would have told the Behrani's to get a restraining order and call the police whenever Kathy came near "her" house, which was often. If the property belonged to both Kathy and her brother Frank, surely he would have been contacted by the authorities when the auction was imminent? His name would have been on the deeds after all. Or doesn't it work like that in California?

I'm actually sorry Mr Behrani hadn't killed her in the end - I was really hoping he had, but read the last few pages long before I'd finished the entire book because it was becoming just too tedious.