![]() ![]() They go through the system, hiring a lawyer to fight Kathy's wrongful eviction, but although the County admits the error, Behrani insists that he will not return the house unless he's paid what it's worth, not merely the low sum he paid at auction. Meanwhile, when Kathy moves out, she meets Deputy Lester Burdon. He moves his family from their apartment into the house. He plans to renovate the house and then resell it for much more than he originally paid as a first step on the way to establishing himself in real-estate investment. When the house is placed for auction, Behrani seizes the opportunity and purchases it, depleting his son's entire college fund. Meanwhile, Kathy Nicolo, a former drug addict who is still recovering from her husband’s abrupt departure, has been evicted from her home, long owned by her family, because of unpaid taxes the county wrongfully claimed she owed. His fellow Iranian exiles, who are more successful and enjoy greater financial security, are unaware that he holds low-skilled jobs. With savings, he pays the rent on an expensive apartment for his family and for an elegant wedding for his daughter. ![]() Because his background is military rather than professional, he has not been able to establish a career in the US and works as a trash collector and convenience store clerk. The novel begins by introducing Massoud Behrani, a former Iranian air force colonel who fled from Iran after the Iranian Revolution. It was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 2000, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, and was adapted into the 2003 film, House of Sand and Fog. Kevin Canfield is a writer in New York City.House of Sand and Fog is a 1999 novel by Andre Dubus III. But Dubus'heavy-handedness prevents this from being one of his better books. "Such Kindness" is often solid, a novel that deserves praise for its nuanced depiction of working-class people. On the way, he's bitten by a dog, whose owner drives him to the hospital he needed to visit in the first place. ![]() When Tom needs to get to a distant hospital to see a family member, he starts walking, knowing his hips will soon give out. He also pens improbable plot developments, some of which suggest the involvement of a higher power. He italicizes key words, lest we miss points about " thoughtfulness" and "unspeakable gifts." His sentences are stout, and he finds poetry amid the mundane, such as a description of classical music, "its rising violins often making me feel like the world is a mystery and I've left it behind."īut Dubus' pious message that we should all be kinder includes mawkish set pieces in which strangers have meaningful conversations about parenting and spout timeless verities. He empathizes with Tom's plight while holding him to account for poor choices. The author of "House of Sand and Fog" is a discerning storyteller. Looking for pre-approved credit cards and blank checks, they steal trash from a banker in a misbegotten adventure that plunges those around Tom into trouble, adding to the mistakes for which he ought to atone. His underemployed neighbors play video games and smoke pot all day.Īlong with a friend, single mother Trina, Tom hatches a scheme. Today, Tom lives alone in a tiny apartment and drinks a lot of vodka. Meanwhile, the bank took Tom's house and his marriage collapsed. When his prescriptions expired, he "sent my young son Drew out into the cold to buy me a baggie of Os." Tom beat the habit, but 19-year-old Drew didn't forgive his dad. Surgery didn't alleviate his pain, and for a time, he was hooked on opioids. But Dubus' evident desire to write a novel that helps heal a country wounded by opioid addiction, class warfare and other ills results in some schematic, clumsy scenes.Įverything changed for Tom when he fell from a roof and broke both hips. It's a big-hearted book and, like one of Tom's buildings, it has a dependable frame: likable characters, relatable dilemmas, strong prose. Like previous novels by the Massachusetts author, "Such Kindness" examines eternal themes through challenges facing blue-collar New Englanders. He's so desperate that he's about to commit an ill-considered crime. "All my life I've been a man who works," Tom Lowe says.But the last half-decade has been terrible for him, a calamitous stretch that emptied his wallet, ended his marriage and estranged him from his son. If you ask the hard-luck narrator of Andre Dubus III's new novel what he's accomplished in 54 years, he'll mention the carpentry business he owned and the houses he built, one of which he and his family called home in happier times. ![]()
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