Rating: 
Summary: nihilistic and depressing
Review: This book was quite disappointing. The characters self-distructed without reason, and the author never made me feel sympathetic toward them. If the author's aim was to say that life is futile and meaningless, it was well made.
Rating: 
Summary: An extraordinary novel - one of the best I've ever read!
Review: Those who like quality writing should rush out to buy this book immediately. I happened upon it nearly a year ago just after it came out, and was lucky enough to snag a First Edition. It will surely become a classic.The book is actually two stories told in parallel. A woman's house is mistakenly siezed by the county and sold at a public action. Meanwhile, an Iranian immigrant, working two jobs to make a better life for his family in America, acquires the house via the auction. There are few living writers who can make words dance on the page the way Andre' Dubus does here. This book ROCKS! Told from opposing points of view in alternating chapters, we learn that the Iranian (Behrani) was a former colonel in the Shah's Air Force, and he escaped with his family during the fall of Iran. In his former life, he and his family were "pooldar" - members of the aristocracy - and now he is working by day as a laborer on a California road crew and by night at a convenience store. The Behranis struggle to maintain their dignity and their ethnic identity in America, and they jump at this opportunity to own a piece of the American dream. The woman, Kathy, a recovering drug addict whose husband has recently left her, encounters more trouble when her home (inherited from her family) is mistakenly seized by the county and sold. Doing everything in her power to cling to the one asset she has, she enlists the help of one of the sympathetic cops who evicted her. As each side tells its story, the reader can sense the tension as the novel moves inexorably toward an explosive confrontation between Colonel Behrani and Kathy. This story will stay with you for a long time. I re-read it about six months later and was again astounded by the beauty of the writing and the story's power. This is one of those haunting, beautiful novels that appear only once every five or ten years. In my opinion, this is without a doubt the best American novel published in recent years.
Rating: 
Summary: two authors?
Review: The first two thirds of this book was evokative and persuasive, especially in creating the two sympathetic characters of the recovering addict who loses her father's home and the industrious, proud Iranian immigrant with the emotionally fragile wife who seeks a better life for his family in America. The last third of the book seemed to be written by someone other than the author who created these protagonists, someone concerned with plot and action rather than emotion; creating a morality play and perhaps with just getting the book done. I was entranced by the beginning and felt duped by the end.
Rating:
Summary: House of Sleep and Boredom
Review: This book was big dissappointment. Usually, books on Oparh's book list are okay- not too bad and enjoyable. However, this one was a sleeper and is worth passing over in the library- not even woth purchasing. This book was okay for about the first one hundred pages. Then, it just got to be so long and drawn out- each chapter felt like eternity when in the plot of the book, it was only a day- sometimes not even that long. This book is full of characters that do not relate well with the readers. The characters just lament over the same problems every few paragraphs or so. At first, I thought Col. Berhani's culture was an interesting twist in a story of a woman wronged, but I later found out that he is just abusive and part of the reason why women in the middle east are so abused, so quiet, so submissive and repressed. The book lacked depth and flow. You can only say so many times in so many ways that the lady got evicted from her house and wanted it back- it doesn't take 365 pages to do so! My advice? Read something else with more body, more plot, more depth!
Rating:
Summary: Darkly Beautiful
Review: This is a terrific novel, wonderfully suspensful and beautifully drawn in shades of somber charcoal. Kathy Niccolo has fallen on hard times, but at least she still has her house. Or does she? Colonel Behrani believes he has legal claim to it for his immigrant family, hard-working and earnest, in many ways more "American" than Kathy is. The story starts with ominous overtones and gets more unnerving as it proceeds, but don't get the wrong idea. It is a great pleasure to read this book, not a dark duty. The most serious themes can create the most entertaining books. Consider Love Songs of the Tone-Deaf, another California Bay Area novel of great promise as contemporary fiction that will endure the test of time. Dubus has won great acclaim for House of Sand and Fog -- but still, less than he deserves.
Rating: 
Summary: On Target Culture Clash
Review: House of Sand and Fog was impressive for a variety of reasons. Many complain that the characters were not "sympathetic". I was struck by how true to life these characters were and wondered if perhaps the culture gap made them less likable to Americans reviewing the book. Iranians, particularly those that were powerful under the Shah, were well-educated, cultured but also very powerful individuals. They were a sort of aristocracy in Iran. To be forced to move to America and lose everything is a tremendous loss and culture shock. Behrani is a typical Iranian man - proud, chauvinistic, hardworking...perhaps many of us have no idea what it would be like if we lost everything and had to become the lowest member of a new society, particularly coming from such a hierarchical society. Kathy, our other protagonist, was also spiraling downward. I was sympathetic to her inability to control her own life and the losses she was suffering. Both characters were attempting to climb up the social ladder, do better for themselves and their families. Both had lost a great deal (their homes!! shocking that they were competing against each other for the same one). They each became the roadblock for the other. Also facinating was the fact that Behrani's plans were effectively ruined by a woman, someone in his own society who would have no power. And, let's face it, Kathy did nothing, she was a victim with incredible power who simply by force of her lack of movement caused tremendous tragedy. Perhaps, we should like or understand people for their weaknesses and not just their strengths. I found this story really sad - almost from the beginning the pages were steeped in a sort of desperate misery. But i couldn't stop reading!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and engaging
Review: I found this book instantly engaging and deeply moving. It brought up myriad issues about home, pride, justice, morality, without ever taking the easy way out by taking a particular stand. The writing was luminous. All sides of the story are fairly and honestly told, and I felt tremendous compassion for all of the deeply flawed characters. It reads like a modern Greek tragedy, universal and sorrowful.
Rating:
Summary: Trying to be Shakespeare maybe?
Review: I liked this book for the first half or so. The characters were very intriguing and I genuinely cared how the entanglements would work out. But it gets so incredibly tragic by the end that I felt as if the author thought he was writing King Lear or Romeo and Juliet (minus the poetry). As I neared the end, I found myself needing to talk about it and related the whole plot to my husband, who sat there in disbelief at how badly things were going for everyone. I agree with the previous reviewer who said the "romantic" parts (i.e., the sex talk) was childish. The author's descriptions of how a woman thinks about sex struck me as a man writing about a woman's experience, and it just didn't ring true. In the end, I found the book to be not a gratifying read. Guess I'll stick to happy endings for now.
Rating:
Summary: Frustrating
Review: I found this book frustrating and at times annoying. I finished it, of course, but more because of my feeling obligated to do so rather than because of enjoyment.The Colonel and his family were the only characters I could relate to and sympathize with. The entire plot premise could have been avoided if Kathy Nicolo, the lazy, alcoholic family freeloader had simply made the minor effort to open her daily mail instead of smoking cigarettes all day in front of the TV. Her boyriend, Lester the cop, is an unbelievable idiot. We are supposed to believe he has risen to the rank of Field Training Officer with all of his apparent personality defects never interfering with his career until he meets a trashy loser for whom he is willing to toss away his nice home,lovely wife and two little children not to mention his promising career in law enforcement. The Colonel is a very hard working man of honor fully devoted to his family's welfare. He purchased Kathy's house legally from the county (which mistakenly foreclosed on it because Kathy doesn't bother to read her mail). When he is confronted by Kathy who wants her house back he suggests that she sue the county for a fortune which she would no doubt win. But noooooo. Kathy and Lester would rather destroy everything to get the stupid house back rather than make the county pay for their mistake. I won't give the ending away, but to add insult to injury, it is the Colonel and his family who end up "taking it in the shorts" at the end of the book. There is a price for Kathy and Lester to pay, but it is chump change compared to the Colonel and his family. Very frustrating.
Rating:
Summary: A depressing but well-written cautionary tale
Review: If I hadn't been reading this for a book discussion group, I think I would have turned the last page, shelved it and after taking something to get rid of the sour taste it left in my mouth, never thought about it again. Instead I struggled for a long time to find the message and I think it comes down to the title -- Sand and Fog. The foundations of each of the characters lives were built on sand - shaky, shifting, unsteady, ready to fall at the first shudder of problems (think it was a coincidence this was set in earthquake country, though an actual earthquake never happened?) And their thought processes, their views of the world were foggy -- unclear, unfocused and ultimately turned in on themselves. Each was tempted to run away, to escape, to not have to take responsibility for one's own actions and lack of firm commitments and morals. The colonel and his family had to flee their home country because of their connection with the military and the government -- having paid for their luxurious lifestyle there with the need to sit side by side with torturers and murderers. Hence, perhaps, his reluctance to flee from something which he felt he finally believed in. (Though even he contemplated leaving to become a religious hermit.) Kathy constantly fled life -- into alcohol, sex, drugs, lies, depression, movies. The house was the womb she was trying to crawl back into -- to avoid life, not to live it. The cop fled his marriage and children, home and responsibilities in exchange for ... thrills -- since the new and different is always more exciting than the known. But he wanted so much to recreate the benefits of having a home life that he grabbed at the house as a chance to affordably make that happen. I find it hard to enjoy a book in which everyone is ultimately somewhat revolting (again, except for the tragic figure of the boy, who I think probably represented the potential god possibilities for the future.) The colonel's wife also became more likeable toward the end of the book. Kathy I just wanted to slap -- one of those professional victims who won't lift a finger to help themselves but expect to be taken care of. An emotional black hole that spells destruction for everyone around her. The cop -- forget it -- self-centered steamroller who'll destroy anything between him and his goal -- wife, family, the colonel's family. The only one you more or less liked throughout the book, and only by default was the colonel since he's at least a hard worker, though prideful -- preferring to virtually kill himself living a false life, working multiple menial jobs in order to "keep up appearances" for his wife and family -- something which was ultimately a wasted effort, since his wife was actually happier when she resigned herself to not being able to pretend to be rich any more, and his daughter, instead of honoring him for his sacrifice, pitied and scorned him instead. I admit it. I prefer a more uplifting book (though many say, with some justification, that most great works of literature are depressing.) But at least it was well written -- to the point that my emotions were stirred (however negative they all were) and the characters will stay in my mind for a while, if only as a warning of the chaos that can happen when we don't build our lives on solid foundations.
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