House of Sand and Fog

Very real people who face impossible choices.

The character development in this book is phenomenal. When my siblings and I were growing up, one of the (many) key concepts emphasized by our dad was to avoid judging others but to put ourselves in their shoes.

Author Dubus has developed characters in this book in a way that allows readers to form judgments over one set of pages only to revise those judgments in subsequent pages as more information comes to the fore. By its end, this tragic tale has enlightened and humbled the reader at every turn.

This #1 New York Times bestseller grapples with what houses say about who we are—or want to become. Slip into a tragic entanglement between Massoud Behrani, a recent immigrant from Iran intent on restoring his family’s honor by purchasing a California bungalow up for auction, and Kathy Nicolo, the house’s owner, and a recovering drug addict determined to hold on to her family property. This penetrating novel will satisfy readers’ unquenchable thirst for stories that explore the psychological ramifications of emotional and social overinvestment in the promise of a house.