House of Sand and Fog
by Andre Dubus III
On This Page
Description
In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon, a married man who finds himself show more falling in love with Kathy, becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice. Drawn by their competing desires to the same small house in the California hills and doomed by their tragic inability to understand one another, the three converge in an explosive collision course. Combining unadorned realism with profound empathy, House of Sand and Fog marks the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
donitamblyn This newly-released novel is another story of the way lives can be deeply affected by forces we don't understand. In HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, we see good people turned against each other because of events beyond their control, coupled with the (uninformed) judgments they make about each other. In THE MASTER PLANETS, we see an exuberant and talented kid in 1970s America -- a kid on the threshold of realizing his dream of making world-changing music -- being derailed by events that happened 30 years before in war-torn Poland. This kind of stuff is fascinating in showing how we are really all tied together across time, distance, and culture. I must say that I much prefer the ending to MASTER PLANETS, as it gives the hope of redemption. "There is more in heaven and earth...." Interestingly enough, it's also a truly rollicking read. I couldn't put it down.
wookiebender I read House of Sand and Fog several years before Shah of Shahs, but I would recommend reading them the other way around! Gave me some background information on Iran that filled in a few gaps in my knowledge.
Member Reviews
Up next an uplifting book about a cop chasing a serial killer.
Seriously. Almost anything would be less bleak and tragic than this story. About a third of the way in you will realize that no one can come out of this situation well. No one.
It’s easy to sympathize with the Behrani family who came to the US when the Shah was deposed in Iran. He was a Colonel in the air force and thought it would be easy to get a job with Boeing or McDonnell Douglas here, but he didn’t. He’s been fooling the world with fake wealth for years in an effort to get their daughter married well. Now she has, dad quits his menial jobs (of which his whole family is ignorant) and invests their remaining savings in a foreclosed house. All well and good. Except show more that house was foreclosed on in error. A literal typo - wrong address. Still, the house is legally his and his whole future hinges on being able to sell it at a profit.
The former owner, Kathy, has little recourse except to sue the county. You’d think there’d be sympathy for her, too, but it’s her own fault. She willfully threw away county letters unopened. If she’d read at least one of them the entire disaster could have been avoided. Depressed that her husband left her, she can’t be bothered. She goes to legal aid to see what she can do now it’s gone too far and is delusional and pig-headed about her standing. It was really hard to feel bad for her at all.
Then there’s Lester. The deputy sheriff on hand for her eviction. He falls for her and systematically throws away his marriage, his kids, his job and finally his freedom for this woman. Sure, the sex is hot, but the fog doesn’t only obliterate the landscape, but possibly good sense as well. Both of them are so self-destructive and stupid that they deserve each other. It’s just so much sadder that they take everyone else down with them.
Fog is mentioned a lot in the novel and it is a lovely metaphor for everyone’s cloudy judgment and rationality. They’re all crazy and blinded by emotions and cultural misunderstandings. If it wasn’t so gut-wrenchingly awful it would be funny.
Dubus can write the paint off the walls though. The story is told with three main narratives - Kathy’s, Lester’s and the Colonel’s. Managing the variegated syntax of this last story was really perfect. I think he had help from folks who speak Farsi and he tweaked the sentence rhythms and structures just perfectly. By way of context you can tease out the meaning of many Farsi words and phrases peppered throughout. It really was a beautiful piece of writing even if the subject of that writing wasn’t always beautiful. show less
Seriously. Almost anything would be less bleak and tragic than this story. About a third of the way in you will realize that no one can come out of this situation well. No one.
It’s easy to sympathize with the Behrani family who came to the US when the Shah was deposed in Iran. He was a Colonel in the air force and thought it would be easy to get a job with Boeing or McDonnell Douglas here, but he didn’t. He’s been fooling the world with fake wealth for years in an effort to get their daughter married well. Now she has, dad quits his menial jobs (of which his whole family is ignorant) and invests their remaining savings in a foreclosed house. All well and good. Except show more that house was foreclosed on in error. A literal typo - wrong address. Still, the house is legally his and his whole future hinges on being able to sell it at a profit.
The former owner, Kathy, has little recourse except to sue the county. You’d think there’d be sympathy for her, too, but it’s her own fault. She willfully threw away county letters unopened. If she’d read at least one of them the entire disaster could have been avoided. Depressed that her husband left her, she can’t be bothered. She goes to legal aid to see what she can do now it’s gone too far and is delusional and pig-headed about her standing. It was really hard to feel bad for her at all.
Then there’s Lester. The deputy sheriff on hand for her eviction. He falls for her and systematically throws away his marriage, his kids, his job and finally his freedom for this woman. Sure, the sex is hot, but the fog doesn’t only obliterate the landscape, but possibly good sense as well. Both of them are so self-destructive and stupid that they deserve each other. It’s just so much sadder that they take everyone else down with them.
Fog is mentioned a lot in the novel and it is a lovely metaphor for everyone’s cloudy judgment and rationality. They’re all crazy and blinded by emotions and cultural misunderstandings. If it wasn’t so gut-wrenchingly awful it would be funny.
Dubus can write the paint off the walls though. The story is told with three main narratives - Kathy’s, Lester’s and the Colonel’s. Managing the variegated syntax of this last story was really perfect. I think he had help from folks who speak Farsi and he tweaked the sentence rhythms and structures just perfectly. By way of context you can tease out the meaning of many Farsi words and phrases peppered throughout. It really was a beautiful piece of writing even if the subject of that writing wasn’t always beautiful. show less
This book could have been tighter towards the end; it gets a little bit predictable, and meanders to a close rather than ends. That aside, this is still an incredibly powerful piece of work. It's not a light book to get through; there are no heroes and there are very few innocents. Behrani, Kathy and Lester, three of the main characters of the novel, are all some of the most finely carved characters I've read in a long time. None of them are perfect; they are all fallible, none of them are even particularly likeable, to my mind. They are all however incredibly human, with a depth and complexity to their actions and reactions that feel utterly real.
The most important character of all isn't human at all, though. It's the eponymous house show more that Kathy loses and Behrani pins all his hopes on. It really is exactly like the title says, a house composed of ephemeral, shifting things, the things Kathy wants to hold on to and the things Behrani wants to achieve. There's a real sense of the house shifting what it is, of being all things and all times to all people, as the book progresses.
The prose is beautifully clear; not especially lyrical, but nicely fluid. Dubus also gets my approval for writing English from Behrani's perspective convincingly as the voice of someone who speaks English as their second language; he doesn't fall into cliches, but writes L1 interference convincingly, something which is all too rare. I'm definitely going to watch the movie adaptation if I get a chance, because I have the feeling that Jennifer Connolly and Ben Kingsley could make something truly wonderful out of source material as good as this show less
The most important character of all isn't human at all, though. It's the eponymous house show more that Kathy loses and Behrani pins all his hopes on. It really is exactly like the title says, a house composed of ephemeral, shifting things, the things Kathy wants to hold on to and the things Behrani wants to achieve. There's a real sense of the house shifting what it is, of being all things and all times to all people, as the book progresses.
The prose is beautifully clear; not especially lyrical, but nicely fluid. Dubus also gets my approval for writing English from Behrani's perspective convincingly as the voice of someone who speaks English as their second language; he doesn't fall into cliches, but writes L1 interference convincingly, something which is all too rare. I'm definitely going to watch the movie adaptation if I get a chance, because I have the feeling that Jennifer Connolly and Ben Kingsley could make something truly wonderful out of source material as good as this show less
Rating: 4.75* of five
The Book Report: Behrani. An exiled colonel in the Shah's army. Kathy. A fucked-up druggie living off her inheritance. Lester. A major idiot whose law-enforcement career is his last best shot at staying off welfare.
Not one of these people will leave this book better than they entered it. Kathy's only home is the one she inherited, and the county says it's not hers anymore because she hasn't paid the taxes. She has, though. She's completely unable to function in the world because she's hazed on drugs for so long that even when she's clean she can't think straight. That means she can't figure out how to prove she has complied with the law.
Behrani can't get an American life going. He has savings (one hesitates to show more imagine where the money came from originally) that barely keep him afloat, and jobs that demean him but are all a man with no skills except being an Army officer can get. But his son's college money is sufficient to buy a distressed property at auction. Kathy's home, as it turns out. He plans to renovate and flip it, using this as a stepping-stone to American Dream-level prosperity.
Lester comes in as the deputy assigned to be sure Kathy gets out of the home that's no longer hers. Love at first sight! Lame-o Lester and Loser Kathy...surely the white trash Romeo and Juliet!
Pretty much.
Dubus drags us through the legal system as the parties battle out the rights and wrongs of the case. No one here is a good person, just a greedy selfish prick who deserves what, in the end, is meted out to them by the author's just and pitiless exercise of karmic debt collection.
My Review: NOT an uplifting book. My withers were wrung about every twenty pages, and I took frequent breaks in order to console myself with excessive liquor consumption and sordid sexual escapades.
I love a book that brings out the best in me.
There's a scene where Lame-o Lester gets his first-ever BJ from Loser Kathy, which Dubus goes into in a bizarrely flat and affectless way that completely desxualizes the act, makes it a symptom of a pathology and not an erotic or intimate or even sexy development. It's just part of the sickness pervading these broken, unfixable people's existences.
Did you *get* that? A man wrote about the thing most men want more than food and only slightly less than air, and made it *unappealing*.
Dubus is a master of his craft. He is an artist. He can do anything he wants with words to make them dance in the reader's head to HIS tune, screw whatever you were expecting, reader! He can fashion a story that, in its outlines, sounds juicy and ripe with conflict, and make it a sharp object that will deflate whatever happy illusions were still in your head about yourself and this Murrikin Dream we're supposed to be having, reader!
And that is why you should read this book. show less
The Book Report: Behrani. An exiled colonel in the Shah's army. Kathy. A fucked-up druggie living off her inheritance. Lester. A major idiot whose law-enforcement career is his last best shot at staying off welfare.
Not one of these people will leave this book better than they entered it. Kathy's only home is the one she inherited, and the county says it's not hers anymore because she hasn't paid the taxes. She has, though. She's completely unable to function in the world because she's hazed on drugs for so long that even when she's clean she can't think straight. That means she can't figure out how to prove she has complied with the law.
Behrani can't get an American life going. He has savings (one hesitates to show more imagine where the money came from originally) that barely keep him afloat, and jobs that demean him but are all a man with no skills except being an Army officer can get. But his son's college money is sufficient to buy a distressed property at auction. Kathy's home, as it turns out. He plans to renovate and flip it, using this as a stepping-stone to American Dream-level prosperity.
Lester comes in as the deputy assigned to be sure Kathy gets out of the home that's no longer hers. Love at first sight! Lame-o Lester and Loser Kathy...surely the white trash Romeo and Juliet!
Pretty much.
Dubus drags us through the legal system as the parties battle out the rights and wrongs of the case. No one here is a good person, just a greedy selfish prick who deserves what, in the end, is meted out to them by the author's just and pitiless exercise of karmic debt collection.
My Review: NOT an uplifting book. My withers were wrung about every twenty pages, and I took frequent breaks in order to console myself with excessive liquor consumption and sordid sexual escapades.
I love a book that brings out the best in me.
There's a scene where Lame-o Lester gets his first-ever BJ from Loser Kathy, which Dubus goes into in a bizarrely flat and affectless way that completely desxualizes the act, makes it a symptom of a pathology and not an erotic or intimate or even sexy development. It's just part of the sickness pervading these broken, unfixable people's existences.
Did you *get* that? A man wrote about the thing most men want more than food and only slightly less than air, and made it *unappealing*.
Dubus is a master of his craft. He is an artist. He can do anything he wants with words to make them dance in the reader's head to HIS tune, screw whatever you were expecting, reader! He can fashion a story that, in its outlines, sounds juicy and ripe with conflict, and make it a sharp object that will deflate whatever happy illusions were still in your head about yourself and this Murrikin Dream we're supposed to be having, reader!
And that is why you should read this book. show less
An Iranian flees for his life with his family to America, taking menial jobs to support them and hiding this from his family, who are living beyond their means in the hopes that this will enable their daughter to marry well. He buys a house at auction for less than it’s worth, hoping that he can sell it for a profit, and sees his wife finally start smiling and blossoming in these new surroundings.
A woman is evicted from her house, after ignoring several letters from the tax office, due to a bureaucratic error.
One of the officers responsible for her eviction becomes concerned with her plight.
These three protagonists are realistically and sympathetically drawn. I found myself empathising with all three (as distinct, perhaps, from liking show more them). They make one stupid decision after the other, as their paths bring them into conflict with one another, but you can understand why they’re doing the things they do, even as things spiral more and more out of control.
The stream-of-consciousness style could be perceived as drawn-out and excessively detailed, but I actually found it very readable, and a good entree into the minds of each of the characters.
I realised while reading this book that one of the joys of reading, for me, is the way in which it allows me to get into the heads of people quite unlike me. This book was a success for me for this reason. show less
A woman is evicted from her house, after ignoring several letters from the tax office, due to a bureaucratic error.
One of the officers responsible for her eviction becomes concerned with her plight.
These three protagonists are realistically and sympathetically drawn. I found myself empathising with all three (as distinct, perhaps, from liking show more them). They make one stupid decision after the other, as their paths bring them into conflict with one another, but you can understand why they’re doing the things they do, even as things spiral more and more out of control.
The stream-of-consciousness style could be perceived as drawn-out and excessively detailed, but I actually found it very readable, and a good entree into the minds of each of the characters.
I realised while reading this book that one of the joys of reading, for me, is the way in which it allows me to get into the heads of people quite unlike me. This book was a success for me for this reason. show less
HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, by Andre Dubus III, was a blockbuster bestseller nearly 20 years ago, and now that I've finally gotten around to reading it, I can see why. It's a story that begins slowly but quickly picks up momentum and then grabs you by the scruff of the neck and keeps you turning pages deep into the night because you simply HAVE to knw what happens next. I mean, WoW! This is simply one helluva good read.
The plot centers around three people. Kathy Lazaro is a thirty-six year old woman who is a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, recently abandoned by her husband. She cleans houses to make ends meet and lives in a small house (the one of the title, inherited from her father) in a coastal village near San Francisco. Due to a show more clerical error re unpaid taxes, her house is seized by the county and auctioned for a very low price to one Massoud Behrani, a former Colonel in the Iranian Air Force who'd been forced to flee Iran at the time of the revolution there. Kathy is evicted from her home by a Deputy Sheriff, Lester Burdon, who, though married with two children, falls in love with Kathy. A tempestuous, ill-advised affair ensues, as Lester tries to help her get her house back. In the course of the narrative, which shifts from first-persons by both Kathy and Behrani, or an omniscient voice for Lester's portions, the reader gradually learns the history of all three characters, and watches with fascination and horror as things go from bad to worse, building to a climax that will leave you gasping and shaken. There are no absolute villains or heroes here, only people caught up in an unfortunate and tragic web of circumstances, fed by confusion, passion and greed.
But enough about the plot. The book has already garnered several hundred reviews at Amazon alone. Dubus is simply a master storyteller who knows how to ratchet up the suspense and demonstrates an uncanny knowledge of human nature, creating characters that are so real they could be living next door. And, even twenty years later, the story remains surprisingly relevant, although there is no mention of cell phones or the internet. Indeed, phone calls are often made from phone booths or public telephones. But here's a sample of HOUSE's continuing relevance, in a comment by Iranian, Colonel Behrani, about -
"... the face of Americans, the eyes that never appear satisfied, at peace with their work, or the day God has given them; these people have the eyes of very small children who are forever looking for their next source of distraction, entertainment, or a sweet taste in the mouth. And it is no longer to me a surprise that it is the recent immigrants who excel in this land, the Orientals, the Greeks, and yes, the Persians. We know rich opportunity when we see it."
Yeah, that "immigrant thing" - twenty years ago. Actually even further back, as this story likely takes place in the early 90s - the only clue to the era that I could find was that Behrani's 14 year-old son had been a babe in arms when he and his family fled Tehran at the time of the revolution, which was in 1979.
This was a fascinating, absorbing and absolutely compelling read, much deserving of its great success. My highest recommendation.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less
The plot centers around three people. Kathy Lazaro is a thirty-six year old woman who is a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, recently abandoned by her husband. She cleans houses to make ends meet and lives in a small house (the one of the title, inherited from her father) in a coastal village near San Francisco. Due to a show more clerical error re unpaid taxes, her house is seized by the county and auctioned for a very low price to one Massoud Behrani, a former Colonel in the Iranian Air Force who'd been forced to flee Iran at the time of the revolution there. Kathy is evicted from her home by a Deputy Sheriff, Lester Burdon, who, though married with two children, falls in love with Kathy. A tempestuous, ill-advised affair ensues, as Lester tries to help her get her house back. In the course of the narrative, which shifts from first-persons by both Kathy and Behrani, or an omniscient voice for Lester's portions, the reader gradually learns the history of all three characters, and watches with fascination and horror as things go from bad to worse, building to a climax that will leave you gasping and shaken. There are no absolute villains or heroes here, only people caught up in an unfortunate and tragic web of circumstances, fed by confusion, passion and greed.
But enough about the plot. The book has already garnered several hundred reviews at Amazon alone. Dubus is simply a master storyteller who knows how to ratchet up the suspense and demonstrates an uncanny knowledge of human nature, creating characters that are so real they could be living next door. And, even twenty years later, the story remains surprisingly relevant, although there is no mention of cell phones or the internet. Indeed, phone calls are often made from phone booths or public telephones. But here's a sample of HOUSE's continuing relevance, in a comment by Iranian, Colonel Behrani, about -
"... the face of Americans, the eyes that never appear satisfied, at peace with their work, or the day God has given them; these people have the eyes of very small children who are forever looking for their next source of distraction, entertainment, or a sweet taste in the mouth. And it is no longer to me a surprise that it is the recent immigrants who excel in this land, the Orientals, the Greeks, and yes, the Persians. We know rich opportunity when we see it."
Yeah, that "immigrant thing" - twenty years ago. Actually even further back, as this story likely takes place in the early 90s - the only clue to the era that I could find was that Behrani's 14 year-old son had been a babe in arms when he and his family fled Tehran at the time of the revolution, which was in 1979.
This was a fascinating, absorbing and absolutely compelling read, much deserving of its great success. My highest recommendation.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less
Oh wow! I just finished the book (having spent the entire day reading it because I just couldn't put it down) and I'm still reeling from it. It has all the drama and pathos of a Shakesperian tragedy. Pride and hubris are the destroyers of dreams for all the characters involved. Add to it the reality of places I know and have lived--Corona is so clearly Pacifica that there is no point in changing the city's name--and the book is one of the most power stories I've read in a long time.
It starts with a bureaucratic mistake. Massoud Behrani, formerly part of the Shah of Iran’s elite inner circle, is working two menial jobs in an effort to maintain a semblance of the wealth and status his family once enjoyed. His family is blissfully unaware of their circumstances, but he knows that he cannot maintain the charade for long and must find a way to achieve the American dream. He sees his opportunity in a newspaper advertisement for a sheriff’s auction – a nice bungalow near the ocean is being sold for back taxes. Kathy Nicolo, struggling to remain in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction and recently abandoned by her husband, is evicted from her home over the tax dispute. She believed she had straightened it out show more months previously, so ignored the continued letters from the county, and now two sheriff’s deputies have arrived to take possession of the house. One of those deputies is Lester Burdon, who is touched by Kathy’s plight and becomes obsessed with helping her get her house back. The power struggle between these characters forms the core of this gripping novel.
What really gets to me about this work is that you have three people who all want the same thing – a better life for themselves. Dubus slowly reveals these characters and why they are so fragile, proud, confused, hopeless, tenacious, and reckless. Their inability to see any way but the ONE way they have each chosen is what sets up the inevitable tragedy. Each firmly believes s/he is correct and they are almost completely unable to understand one another. Actions taken as a result of impulse and poor judgment are compounded by further actions and reactions.
Dubus changes perspective regularly throughout the novel. So we have insight into each of these characters, their back stories, their dreams and motivations. While I find that I had the most empathy for Colonel Behrani, there were times when I also felt empathy for Kathy or even Lester. And, conversely, there were times I wanted to slap some sense into each of them (mostly Lester and Kathy, but also Behrani). I had seen the movie so knew what was coming, but still felt the sense of suspense.
My only complaint is with the ending. This is probably because of my having seen the movie, which ended with Colonel Behrani … a very powerful image. I recognize why Dubus gave each character an opportunity to reflect on what had happened at the end of the book, but I still wish it had ended about 30 pages earlier. show less
What really gets to me about this work is that you have three people who all want the same thing – a better life for themselves. Dubus slowly reveals these characters and why they are so fragile, proud, confused, hopeless, tenacious, and reckless. Their inability to see any way but the ONE way they have each chosen is what sets up the inevitable tragedy. Each firmly believes s/he is correct and they are almost completely unable to understand one another. Actions taken as a result of impulse and poor judgment are compounded by further actions and reactions.
Dubus changes perspective regularly throughout the novel. So we have insight into each of these characters, their back stories, their dreams and motivations. While I find that I had the most empathy for Colonel Behrani, there were times when I also felt empathy for Kathy or even Lester. And, conversely, there were times I wanted to slap some sense into each of them (mostly Lester and Kathy, but also Behrani). I had seen the movie so knew what was coming, but still felt the sense of suspense.
My only complaint is with the ending. This is probably because of my having seen the movie, which ended with Colonel Behrani … a very powerful image. I recognize why Dubus gave each character an opportunity to reflect on what had happened at the end of the book, but I still wish it had ended about 30 pages earlier. show less
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Oprah's Book Club (original and 2.0)
91 works; 21 members
Unread books
1,063 works; 87 members
Favourite Books
1,817 works; 308 members
Books That Made Me Cry
199 works; 104 members
Top Five Books of 2019
387 works; 111 members
National Book Award Finalists - Fiction
377 works; 12 members
Blue Pyramid 1,276 Best Books of All Time
1,248 works; 32 members
Watched the Movie, Probably Won't Read the Book
185 works; 34 members
Started, Not Finished
7 works; 1 member
I Could Live There
185 works; 12 members
Page Turners
185 works; 11 members
Books Read in 2019
4,052 works; 110 members
Which house?
423 works; 16 members
Top Five Books of 2023
767 works; 317 members
Florida
366 works; 3 members
The Complete Rory Gilmore Reading List
506 works; 5 members
Author Information
14+ Works 9,812 Members
Andre Dubus III was born on September 11, 1959 in Oceanside, California. He is the son of the acclaimed writer Andre Dubus, and mystery writer James Lee Burke is his cousin. Dubus attended Bradford College, where his father taught, and then switched to the University of Texas at Austin where he studied sociology, political science and economics. show more He dropped out of a Ph.D. program, signed on at a construction site, and began boxing. A friend convinced Dubus to start writing, and he wrote in his spare time till getting a job teaching writing at Emerson. He has also worked as a private investigator, corrections counselor, and bounty hunter, as well as various other jobs. As an actor he has appeared in numerous stage plays and three independent films. He is also a general contractor and carpenter. Dubus is the author of the story collection The Cage Keeper and other Stories and the novels Bluesman, House of Sand and Fog (which was a finalist for the 1999 National Book Award and was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film), and The Garden of Last Days. Dubus has garnered other distinctions, including a Pushcart Prize and a 1985 National Magazine Award for Fiction. He has also been published in short story anthologies, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and numerous literary reviews. Dubus teaches creative writing courses at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and has also taught writing at Harvard University and Tufts University. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Awards
Distinctions
Notable Lists
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Has the adaptation
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Het huis in de mist
- Original title
- House of Sand and Fog
- Original publication date
- 1999-02-01
- People/Characters
- Massoud Amir Behrani; Kathy Nicolo; Lester Burdon; Esmail Behrani
- Important places
- California, USA
- Important events
- Iranian Revolution (1979)
- Related movies
- House of Sand and Fog (2003 | IMDb)
- Epigraph
- Beyond myself
somewhere
I wait for my arrival
—From "The Balcony" by Octavio Paz - Dedication
- For my brother, Jeb, and for my four sisters, Suzanne, Nicole, Cadence, and Madeleine.
- First words
- The fat one, the radish Torez, he calls me Camel because I am Persian and because I can bear this August sun longer than the Chinese and the Panamanians and even the little Vietnamese, Tran.
- Quotations
- "Dat's what they say of this cauntry back home, Kath: 'America, the land of milk and honey.' Bot they never tell you the milk's gone sour and the honey's stolen."
"It's almost easier being down and alone than when you're up and no one's there to share the view with you."
"...wanting for just this moment to be them again, though I never had been in the first place. Not really. Not a girl with girlfriends. Now, twenty years later, I could be their mother. But I wasn't anyone's mother, or wife. ... (show all)I wasn't a real girlfriend to anybody, or a friend; I was barely a sister, and whenever I thought of myself as a daughter my body felt too small and filthy to live in."
"But he didn't want to get caught up in the vortex of "should have's." Regret was Fear's big sister, the one he believed should never be let in the door." - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"...I nod at her pack of Marlboro Lights. At first she doesn't seem to understand what I want, but then I smile, and put two fingers to my lips."
- Blurbers*
- Burke, James Lee; Winfrey, Oprah
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 7,082
- Popularity
- 1,657
- Reviews
- 122
- Rating
- (3.75)
- Languages
- 8 — Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 47
- UPCs
- 2
- ASINs
- 30