Rating: 
Summary: If you know dysfunctional people, you know this book....
Review: I loved this book although everybody else I know that has read it didn't. If you like books that rip back the curtain and show the stark naked world for what it is, uncertain and imperfect, this would be a wonderful read for you. The book follows the intertwining of several peoples lives as they slowly work to an unpredicatable and wrentching climax. The characters of this book are so full of realness. My favorite thing about modern and contemporary literature is that you know the characters. This book is an intense culmination of reality. Everything is familiar, and empathy makes the book feel like guilty voyuerism. Instead of the tedium of unrequited love and tragic gnawing angst of classical novels, the drives of the characters of this book are real. Their passions are familiar to anyone who has ever been, or know someone who has been, flawed. The best part of this book is it forces you to recognize the error of perspective. As the whole unfolds you realize that, like real life, there's no right and wrong, there's no hero, and there's no reasonable outcome that satisfies the typical novels need for closure and perfection. If you like a book that challenges you, that demands that you questions your quick answers and easy solutions, that asks you to peek into the real world around you and question the judgement you may easily pass, this is the book for you. Than again, it may just be a book about a couple of pissed off people fighting over a house. You be the judge.
Rating: 
Summary: Please give me somebody to care about in this book!
Review: First, this book is constructed in a unique and interesting manner that moves the plot along quickly. If you *have* to read it, as I did for a book club, you won't have any trouble turning the pages. However, if you're looking for a redeemable character to relate to, you probably won't find it. I think Dubus meant to make the main characters more sympathetic by giving each of them a voice in the novel, but it backfires. I didn't care how the problems resolved at the end - the characters' selfishness and intolerance had just exhausted me by that point.
Rating:
Summary: poor character development; uncompelling dialogue
Review: I generally prefer novels from the first person perspective, especially ones, like this, that switch perspectives between different characters. I usually enjoy a story told by different narrators. That is, if it is a good story. This certainly had the potential to be a good story, although an obvious one. Contrary to other reviews I have seen, I considered this novel not particularly well written, especially the dialogue, where married characters having an affair ask such banal and predictable questions as "Do I complicate things?", and one character contemplates of another character, that her eyes are unlike any he'd ever seen. The characters are quite one-sided. I agree that Behrani is certainly the more developed and thus more interesting of the two, but the characters' motivations are extremely limited. Despite Les's dull declaration that Kathy "is a complicated woman", it is precisely the lack of depth that makes this book feel strongly like a morality lesson, and a second rate one at that. In fact, in case we *miss* Colonel Behrani's tragic flaws, his pride and his hipocracy, his wife gets to state them explicitly during the very contrived climax of the novel. I think it's safe to beware of books that have an alcoholic as a main character; it's obvious from Kathy's third section that the climax of this novel will involve an irrational drinking binge. There is no subtlety here: Kathy's "addictive personality", her general dependency, whether on a person or on a substance, causes her breakdown. The persistent and obvious imagery reminds me of the books one reads in middle school to try and teach students to pick up symbolism, such as "The Great Gatsby" (note that this is not an indictment against "The Great Gatsby") and so forth; images you'd have to be daft to miss. I don't exactly think it's literary genius to have the characters constantly "in a fog", quite literally, and quite literally unable to see too far beyond themselves. I agree with the reviewer who decided that this was a "made for TV movie". Especially when reading the sections about Kathy and Lester, I felt like I was watching a maudlin movie -- a piece of entertainment, but certainly not a piece of literature. This book was not a waste of my time; it was a quick read due to its tendency towards melodrama. I was not looking for a happy ending, as some readers seemed to be, or even sympathetic characters. I just wanted to *believe* them, I guess. This was a selection for a book club I recently joined, and this book pales deeply compared to the last one we read, "The Hours", by Michael Cunningham. Also from the first person, his insight and observation and fluidity in speaking in different voices made me believe that, perhaps, his intimate understanding of his characters was due to the fact that he was really speaking in a universal voice. This book, on the other hand, is choppy, disjointed, and melodramatic.
Rating:
Summary: Can't we give this one SIX STARS???
Review: Fabulous book - one of our best Book Club discussions to date! Shows how one bad choice can lead to another, and another, and another. Fascinating characters. Don't miss this one!
Rating: 
Summary: 365 long pages
Review: I am one of those people who are cursed with Once-I-Start-a-Book-I-Have-To-Finnish-It-Syndrome. As a result, I try to always reserve making judgement on a book until the very last page. I have been joyously surprised on several occasions by a last minute twist an author squeezes in which transforms a seemingly endless read into an exciting adventure. I enjoyed the writers' style, and the preliminary development of the characters did draw me in past the 'point of no return' (about 10 pages). Unfortunately, after that point, there was very little else pulling me along except the desire to be done with this book. I found each characters' decent into ruin, return to addictions, moral declines, or eventual fates depressing, dull, and down-right annoying after a while. My apologies to Andre Dubus III, after all, who am I to criticize? But this book did nothing for me personally. In all fairness it should be noted, this book was recommended from a family member who DID like it.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible, Depressing, tragic
Review: I usually try to read the books in Oprah's bookclub, most of the time they are very good and you can relate to the characters themselves as well as the struggles they are going through. However, I found this book terribly distrubing, and disappointing. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone and I would think twice before ever picking-up another book by this author. The only reason why I finished the book is to see who ended-up with the house.
Rating:
Summary: Sex, violence, substance abuse: what else is new?
Review: My book group chose this book as our monthly selection. Initially I found it difficult going, certainly not on account of the writing but because the situation was so fraught with tension. I was immediately drawn to the two protagonists; Dubus' use of first-person narrative is very effective here, though he doesn't penetrate into Kathy's psyche as effectively as he does Behrani's, perhaps because he is easily the most complex and interesting character in the novel. The take we get on Persian culture from his perspective is truly instructive and a welcome change from the customary stereotypes. However, my antennae were up from the first page: I've lived in the SF Bay Area for 30 years and I doubt that any highway cleanup crew would be working from Sausalito to Golden Gate Park--maybe he meant the Golden Gate Bridge. The kind of cleanup detail he describes is customarily done on weekends by misdemeanor drug offenders and not by a regularly assigned crew. Further on, the use of the moniker "Frisco" struck a nerve--the only people who use that nickname are tourists and other auslanders. But these are petty quibbles. My real problem with this book started in the mall with Kathy's drinking episode; the moment she took the gun out of the trunk I knew I was stuck in a made-for-TV movie. Up to this point I had tried to imagine possible satisfying outcomes that would embrace character development, a deepening understanding among the characters, and a sense of realistic plot development. Certainly a complex character such as Behrani would have done the same. I think a novel billed as literature should not have to rely on the clichéd combination of sex, substance abuse and violence to reach a satisfactory conclusion. Aren't the media sufficiently saturated with these lowest-common-denominator themes?
Rating:
Summary: Horribly Depressing
Review: I have generally enjoyed the books on Oprah's list, but this one was terrible and depressing. The charactors are immoral. It is hard to identify with anyone in the book--not sure who I am suppose to route for...and the ending was just uncalled for tragic. This book totally lacked any sense of morality.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written, but.......
Review: House of Sand and Fog is a tragic, shocking story of what happens when basically decent people can't see beyond their own limited perspectives. The Colonel can only see that acquiring and keeping this one house will solve all of his problems for finally regaining stature and succeeding in America. Kathy can only see her loss of her father's house as the Colonel's fault, not seeing her unwillingness to take any responsibility for her own life and actions and her addictive personality. Burdon can only see his own actions as justifying his love/lust for Kathy. He isn't even really listening or trying to understand Kathy. It is hard to believe that the tragedy could go to the extremes of violence that play out here. It is an extreme story, but one that stays with you.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of money
Review: I found this book to be extremely depressing. I only stayed with the story to see who would get the house, but only to find such a depressing end. I believe Mr. DuBois had his head in the fog too long. I'm sorry I wasted a beautiful summer day on such a gloomy book. Save your money.
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