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House of Sand and Fog (Oprah's Book Club) (Vintage Contemporaries)
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You Are Here: Books About Antiques > Blue Books > Item 182 of 480
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$14.95 |
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$10.17
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Available from Amazon
Price Last Updated : 7-30-2008
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Features
Paperback: 365 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Trade edition November 16, 2000
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375727345
ISBN-13: 978-0375727344
Product Dimensions:
7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
Product Review
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
From Publishers Weekly
Dubus has created a novel that is nearly perfectly suited to the audio format. Kathy Nicolo is a recovering addict whose husband has left her and who is making her way in the straight world with her own cleaning business. When her house in the California hills is mistakenly seized by the county for back taxes and sold at public auction, she finds herself living out of her car and on the brink of desperation. Once a wealthy and powerful man in Iran and a colonel in the army under the Shah's rule, Behrani is now a struggling immigrant who hopes that he can sell the house for a large profit, so that he can once again provide his family with a lifestyle like the one they enjoyed in Iran. Emotions take precedence over ethics, logic, love and the law as their paths collide in a surprising and tragic conclusion. The reading by the author and his wife is sublime. Dubus's performance as the hot-headed Behrani is frightening in its intensity. His wife captures Kathy's dispassionate disbelief with a flat distance that is as effectively realistic as it is palpable. Based on the Norton hardcover.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Audio Cassette
edition.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: House of Sand and Fog (Paperback)
Andre Dubus III's House of Sand and Fog gave me another hint of mortality, not solely because of the tragic tale. I now find that one of my favorite writers is the son of one of my favorite writers. (Amis and Amis, Buckley and Buckley also come to mind.) This book is a nuanced tale with five very strong main characters in the best traditions of the old tragedies. An Iranian colonel who has fled with his family to America following the fall of the Pahlavi government, finally seizes an opportunity to put that family back on a financially comfortable plain. He buys, at a tax auction, a very modest bungalow in a San Francisco suburb. He is pleasantly suprised when he learns that house could be sold for as much as four times what he paid for it, and unpleasantly surprised when it appears the county erred in seizing and auctioning the property. Although he is on firm legal ground, the moral ground is a swamp, populated by two reptilian characters, Kathy, a recovering drug abuser cum housecleaner, and Lester, a philandering deputy sheriff. The themes of self interest, denial, greed, moral certitude, moral ambiguity and xenophobia run like golden threads through this novel. Dubus III is an original voice and this novel is a breakthrough. The story is complex and rich. You only get a glimpse of his ability in his collection of short stories, The Cagekeeper. Buy this book. By far, the best I've read in a while.
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House of Sand and Fog (Oprah's Book Club) (Vintage Contemporaries)
by Andre Dubus III
List Price: $14.95
Available from Amazon
Price: $10.17
on 7-30-2008
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