I've been in a dark mood lately, and this depressing book was a good fit for my current state of mind.

My husband and I have vastly different tastes in movies. He typically prefers slapstick and standup comedies while my preferences gravitate to the offbeat and twisty, even when I'm not angry and emotional all the time. We take turns choosing what to watch and mainly it works, because sometimes I find humor amusing and occasionally he embraces his twisty side (he married me, after all). He's not much of a reader, but since this story has been adapted for the silver screen, this could be just the type of depressing flick I could see him getting sucked into, and I'm curious to see the movie now that I've read the book.

One of the things that surprised me the most is how much I liked this book, even though I found all the main characters to be dislikable people. Massoud Behrani, prick. Kathy Nicolo, annoying. Lester Burdon, douchebag. All three of them, self-destructive.

Behrani is a former Iranian colonel who led a privileged, comfortable life as a result of his military connections, one of which included his dear friend who was the leader of the Iranian secret police. Following a revolution of the people, Behrani was forced to flee the country with his family or face the deaths of his wife, children, and himself. The family ultimately settles in California, where they spend almost all their accumulated wealth by living above their means to maintain a 'pooldar' appearance and secure a worthy marriage for their daughter. Behrani repeatedly attempts to secure a job befitting his "station", but finds himself working first shift for a road maintenance crew with a number of other immigrants, and second shift at a shady convenient store.

Sometimes I felt bad for him...except for that whole willflul blindness, secret police military connection.

Kathy Nicolo Lazaro is a recovering addict who moved to the West Coast to start over with her second husband, who is also a recovering addict. They move into a small house that Kathy and her brother had inherited from their father, and she starts her own cleaning business. When her husband suddenly leaves her, she sinks into a depression and ignores official letters from the county, who erroneously believe she owes them taxes. As a result of the error and Kathy's choice to ignore the problem, she is evicted from her home, which the county then auctions off for a quarter of the value. Kathy then proceeds to spend the rest of the book falling slowly apart.

Sometimes I felt bad for her...except for that whole moth-to-flame thing she had going on, which I don't sympathize with.

Lastly, there's Deputy Sheriff Lester Burdon and his crooked mustache. Lester is a damn, dirty cheater. Kathy thinks he's hot, but I kept picturing him as Burt Reynolds in the 70's and I'm too young for Burt Reynolds in the 70's.

n  n

Once or twice I felt bad for him, but mainly I couldn't stand him.

From a character study standpoint, this book was brilliant. Dubus constantly head hops between Behrani and Kathy, but instead of leaving me feeling disjointed and confused, it added suspense. It also gave me the freedom to simultaneously cheer them both on, and switch back and forth between sympathizing and disliking them. The ending was abrupt, depressing, and one of the most fucked up things I've read in awhile, but with the increasingly self-destructive path these individuals were on, I'm not sure it could have ended any other way and still been worth reading.

Definitely not something I'd recommend for everyone, but if you like introspective books about the underlying factors that can motivate an individual's twisted actions, this one might capture your interest as it did mine.

طرح داستان خوبه.نگارشش هم،بد نیست.مثل خیلی کتابهای دیگه.نه خیلی درخشان،نه بد.جزئیات رو به اندازه توضیح داده.نه مثل رمانهای قدیمی واسه توصیف یه گلدون یه فصل نوشته،نه مثل بعضی کتابای دیگه اینقدر هیچی نگفته که آدم اصلا نتونه فضا رو تصور کنه.توصیفات به نظر من کافی بودن.شخصیت پردازی تقریبا مناسبه.نظر به این که نویسنده ایرانی نبوده،به نظر من خوب تونسته از زبان یک مرد ایرانی که مثل خیلی مردهای دیگر به خاطر انقلاب متواری شدند بنویسد. مرد داستان برای من ایرانی هم پذیرفتنی است که واقعا نقطه قوت داستانه.
ولی داستان تلخه.از اول تا آخرش تلخه.کتابی نیست که بشه گفت:"دوسش داشتم"شاید بشه نگارش و طرح و شخصیت پردازیش رو نقد کرد(چه مثبت و چه منفی)ولی کتابی نیست که به اصطلاح"حال خوب کن"باشه.برعکس،می تواند حال خوب آدم را هم خراب کند.
(البته به شخصه فیلم را خیلی خیلی خیلی بیشتر از کتاب حال خوب کن می دانم.چرا؟نمی دانم.)
در یک جمله اگر قرار باشد کتابی را به کسی توصیه کنم قطعا آن کتاب "خانه ی شن و مه"نخواهد بود.ترجیح می دهم کتابهای شیرین تر یا حداقل تلخ اما با پایان خوب را توصیه کنم.
پایان تلخ قصه ی مرد ایرانی و خانواده اش واقعا دل آدم را به درد می آورد. زن قصه هم که سراپا بدبختی است.بدبختی اش از جنس زن های ایرانی نیست،ولی قابل لمسه.هدف نداره،جایی رو نداره،یه سرگردونی غریب که من مرتب با خودم میگفتم خداروشکر که جاش نیستم!
از کل کتاب،دو قسمتش خوب تو ذهنم مونده.یکی جایی که زن قصه با برادرش درباره ی آمریکا صحبت می کنندو برادرش میگه:میگن آمریکا شیروعسله،ولی کسی نمی گه که شیرش گندیده س و عسلش فاسد.(نقل به مضمون)
یکی هم آخرای کتاب که زن درباره ی برادرش میگه اون وقتی بدبختی دیگران رو میدید خوشحال می شد.خوشحال می شد که این بدبختی برای او پیش نیامده.و این حتی شامل خواهرش هم می شه.
در کل با توجه به همه ی اینا و یه سری چیزای دیگه،به نظرم سه زیادیشه و دو بی انصافی.دو و نیم اگه بود،دو و نیم می دادم.
شخصی:شب چهارشنبه سوری92

“The truth is life is full of joy and full of great sorrow, but you can't have one without the other.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog




This is the type of book that I would call a masterpiece. It also affected me so deeply that I’ve never been able to read it a second time. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

Although many people say this book is about a house it really doesn’t have all that much to do at the house in question. This book is about two people, flawed people to be sure, but People who are decent at heart although some of their actions may not appear that way.

These people love, they laugh, they cry and they hate. It is when The hate begins to overwhelm them that their lives catapult into catastrophe.

I guess this is the type of work one calls Shakespearean in nature. There are few books that affect me so deeply I can’t read them again.

That this book is great isn’t even a question in my mind. But I can still understand why it would not be for everyone. I think I’ve been able to write a bit of a review without using spoilers but I think this book is, as I said above a masterpiece. I still want to talk about the ending but.. I’ll skip that. Absolutely recommend it.

This is a story told from two points of view, which I thought really worked. One POV is from Genob Behrani, who was a colonel in the Iranian Air Force but is now a political refuge living in California. The other POV is from Kathy Nicolo, a recovering alcoholic who is down on her luck.

For me, this book started out strong, and I couldn’t put it down. I thought the plot was unique and the characters well defined. As the story progressed, the character’s actions became, to me, a little over-the-top and unbelievable, which is why this was just an okay read for me. People who like drama or contemporary fiction may like this book.

“The House of Sand and Fog” by Andre Dubus III is a powerful read!

It’s about cultural misconceptions and achieving the “American Dream”. The story is told through two different heart wrenching and believable perspectives. It was hard to put down and a bit painful to read. I saw the movie years ago and wanted a broader picture of the characters. The book did this for me!

The characters were so “alive” through the writers words I felt I was there watching it all! As you read through the scenarios this writer portrays through the characters in this book, you know they are shockingly real! It’s a study of how swiftly everything can go wrong and everyone involved can change through lack of empathy and integrity. All of this could happen! Maybe it already has...

I loved this book and highly recommend it to all!

A bureaucratic error is the catalyst for conflict and connections between three wounded souls, each coming to grips with the lies they've been living. It's rare for a book to captivate and transport me the way HoSaF did. The author approaches his characters with such honesty and lack of judgment. Even though I don't know anyone remotely like any of these people in real life, Dubus made me feel I understood their lives, their motivations, their fears, and the inevitable conclusion to their problems. Masterfully written, very satisfying.

House of Sand and Fog, Andre Dubus III

House of Sand and Fog is a 1999 novel by Andre Dubus III. It was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 2000, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, and was adapted into the 2003 film, House of Sand and Fog.

The novel begins by introducing Massoud Behrani, a former colonel exiled from Iran after the Iranian Revolution. Because his background is military rather than professional, he has not been able to establish a career in the US and works as a trash collector and convenience store clerk. With savings, he pays the rent on an expensive apartment for his family and for an elegant wedding for his daughter, and his fellow, more successful Iranian exiles do not know that he holds low-skilled jobs.

Meanwhile, Kathy Nicolo, a former drug addict who is still recovering from her husband abruptly leaving her, has been evicted from her home, long owned by her family, because of unpaid taxes the county wrongfully claimed she owed. When the house is placed for auction, Behrani seizes the opportunity and purchases it. He bets his son's entire college fund, planning to renovate the house and then resell it for much more than he originally paid as a first step on the way to establishing himself in real-estate investment. He moves his family from their apartment into the house. Meanwhile, when Kathy moves out, she meets Deputy Lester Burdon. They go through the system, hiring a lawyer to fight Kathy's wrongful eviction, but although the County admits the error, Behrani insists that he will not return the house unless he's paid what it's worth, not merely the low sum he paid at auction. ...

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و هشتم ماه آوریل سال2003میلادی

عنوان: خانه شن و مه؛ نویسنده: آندره دبیوس؛ مترجم: مهدی قراچه داغی؛ تهران، پیکان، سال1381؛ در368ص؛ شابک9643282104؛ چاپ دوم سال1383؛ چاپ سوم سال1386؛ موضوع امریکائیهای ایرانی تبار از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده20م

داستان، در نخستین سالهای دهه ی نود، از سده ی بیستم میلادی، صورت می‌گیرد؛ «امیر مسعود بهرانی»، یک «سرهنگ نیروی هوایی شاهنشاهی ایران»، در پی انقلاب سال هزار و سیصد و پنجاه و هفت هجری خورشیدی، همراه با همسرش «نادیا»، و پسر نوجوانشان «اسماعیل»، به «آمریکا» کوچ می‌کنند؛ ایشان در «سانفرانسیسکو»، ناگزیر می‌شوند، برای ادامه ی زندگی به سبک اشرافی گذشته‌ ی خویش، به کارهای سخت روی آورند؛ با دیدن آگهی حراج یک خانه، در نزدیکی ساحل، به خرید خانه‌ ای کوچک و دنج، مبادرت می‌کنند، که از سوی شهرستان آن ناحیه، به حراج گذاشته شده، ساکن پیشین آن خانه، زنی جوان و افسرده، با نام «کاترین» است، که همسرش او را ترک کرده، و خانه از پدرش، به او به ارث رسیده‌ است؛ اما «کاترین»، به دلیل عدم توجه به پرداخت مالیات‌های سالانه، خانه را از دست داده، و اکنون «بهرانی‌»ها ساکن آن‌ هستند؛ «کاترین» و خانواده ی سرهنگ «بهرانی»، در واقع بدون آنکه هیچ‌ کدام تقصیری داشته باشند، در تلاش برای تصاحب آن خانه، با هم در تقابل قرار می‌گیرند؛ و ...؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 16/01/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ 30/11/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

House of Sand and Fog ...By Andre Dubus III... One family from Iran and one young woman go back and forth regarding the ownership of one house. The story shows greed and unwillingness for compromise . The young woman is hanging on the past. When intervention is made it results in death and lost hopes. The author did a good job in separating the different chapters. The story ran smoothly.

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.

A funny joke would have been if the whole thing had been a simple case of the wrong address and all of the heartbreak and tragedy were for naught.

“I’m sorry, I think you’re looking for House of Sand and Fog #34. This is House of Sand and Fog #134.”

And why would anyone fight over a sandy and foggy house?

Beyond myself
somewhere
I wait for my arrival
—From “The Balcony” by Octavio Paz
Here’s something that I mostly hate in novels, the epigraph. Most of the time they are totally pretentious and simply meant to add gravitas, like this bestseller fodder merits an epigraph. The same goes for crime fiction. Please, just cut to the chase.

Ugh. I really hated this book, or at least what I read of it, which was about half. I thought that whole conflict over the house was pretty flimsy and legally pretty dubious. I hated everyone in the story. Sorry, but I’m not sorry in the least that you didn’t land in America with the same over-privileged status you enjoyed in the incredibly undemocratic toilet you helped build in Iran.

So...I get that this novel is supposed to be tragic, but at the end of it all, the only thing I could think was, "Why did I waste my time?"

It wasn't even the kind of tragic that feels cathartic or interesting - I had to truly power my way through it. The only character who felt even vaguely more than one dimensional was Colonel Behrani, and I have to stress that he only felt vaguely that way.

I just felt like nothing Lester did was believable or understandable, Kathy was basically just "a woman who is in recovery but sliding back down the hole in the most obvious and boring way possible," and Behrani was...while somewhat more believable, still...pretty much a cardboard cutout.

It's sort of unusual for me to dislike a novel to THIS extent. I just really didn't enjoy his writing style or his characters or even the plot. So...basically a wash, for me, and my husband got to enjoy my frustrated, "Why did I bother" sulk afterwards. Very minor sulk, and I openly admitted I only bothered because I'd started it and felt duty bound to finish it...

Oprah raved about it so I bought it. This is one of those books that I couldn’t put down because I had to find out what happened, but it ended up leaving a nasty taste in my mouth. Kathy Nicolo hasn’t been opening her mail, so she doesn’t know that the county has made a error in their records and are billing her for someone else’s property taxes. She ends up being evicted from her home and in the process meets Lester Burdon, a deputy with troubles of his own. Her house is bought at auction by an Iranian immigrant, a hard man who was a colonel in the Shah’s army. Colonel Behrani hopes to sell it at a profit so that he can improve his family’s situation in America, but it’s not really his to sell. Almost everyone involved in this story makes the most terrible mistakes and the consequences are tragic. Things just spin out of control for everyone involved. This is a good novel even though I wanted to smack every one of the main characters upside the head!