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A review by yeahkaren
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
4.0
I saw the movie years ago and really liked it. It’s one of those that I still think about sometimes...how out of control situations can get so quickly. I did not remember a lot of details from the movie, and of course the book goes into a lot more backstory of the characters. The ending is also a little different, I suspect because they had to cut some of the original story from the book to keep the movie short enough.
Basically, though, I thought a couple things: I don’t really like any of the characters, but the author wrote them well enough that I feel like I understand them. Also, I could not figure out the time period in which this takes place. At first the colonel talked so much about the Iranian Revolution (1979) that it made me think it had just recently happened, so I eventually decided the book was taking place sometime in the mid-80s, just a few years later. Until I got near the end of the book and there was a mention of a computer with a modem and Internet and email. I went, Huh? I realized then that the teenage son had been a baby when they left Iran (although I don’t think this was made clear until well into the book), so I guess it was the early to mid-90s? (Also: house as a character, a la the Dutch House.)
Basically, though, I thought a couple things: I don’t really like any of the characters, but the author wrote them well enough that I feel like I understand them. Also, I could not figure out the time period in which this takes place. At first the colonel talked so much about the Iranian Revolution (1979) that it made me think it had just recently happened, so I eventually decided the book was taking place sometime in the mid-80s, just a few years later. Until I got near the end of the book and there was a mention of a computer with a modem and Internet and email. I went, Huh? I realized then that the teenage son had been a baby when they left Iran (although I don’t think this was made clear until well into the book), so I guess it was the early to mid-90s? (Also: house as a character, a la the Dutch House.)