House of Sand and Fog
By Andre Dubus III
House of Sand and Fog centers around the rapidly rising and
falling circumstances of three people: Amir Behrani, a one-time
colonel in the Iranian Air Force who, until purchasing a
repossessed house at an auction, had been making a living
in the US picking up trash along the highways near Berkeley;
Kathy Nicolo, a one-time alcoholic whose husband has left
her with little more than the house she inherited from her
father – that house she has just lost for failure to
pay taxes; and Sheriff Lester Burdon, a married man who finds
himself in the middle of their dispute, yet soon falls in
love with the desperate woman. There is, of course, a fourth
character as well: the titular house itself, which stands
mute yet somehow menacing in the background, the shared desire
that ultimately, along with the mistrust and myopic fear
the two parties in dispute have for each other, leads to
everybody’s downfall. Along the way, we learn a good
deal about Persian language, food, and customs; we see how
systems so easily fail those who rely on them; and we watch
helplessly as three characters who are neither heroes nor
villains, yet possibly both, chase their selfish desires
into a descending spiral of pain and despair. Jason M. Rubin
©Copyright 2008 Libretto,
Inc. |
