House of Sand and Fog

“Dats 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 bad and the honey’s stolen.” 

Kathy recalls this quote, which was spoken to her by the Irish bartender at her old restaurant job. Remembered shortly after she’s been evicted from her house, this prophetic quote foreshadows the events of the novel and frame its larger theme concerning the myth of the American dream.

“Occasionally I would look over at the young torturer and see him gazing into the fire, his eyes empty, and I wished he would leave our group early and not come back, for I did not like to be reminded of the secret police and all the people they made disappear in our land, these students and professionals, wives mothers, husbands, fathers, children, illiterate cargars living in small houses of mud and wood scraps less than a kilometer from the gran palace with all of its fine ornaments imported from around the world; I did not like to think once again that America, with whom I did close business in the purchase of fighter jets, had such a hand in this; I did not like to think this was the manner in which our king retained his throne and our way of life; but, most of all, I did not want to accept that Pourat was correct when he said the young policeman and I were colleagues”

Behrani, remembering his encounter with a member of Iran’s secret police, is disgusted by the thought that the two of them existed, and thrived, within the same regime. Although Behrani is proud of his service and dear friend, the late General Pourat, he struggles with pangs of conscience when he thinks about the true cost of his comfortable life. His reluctance to confront injustice when it benefits him is a driving factor in his refusal to show Kathy any sympathy.

“There is a slight movement within the automobile. I approach and peer through the window glass to see a young woman sleeping upon her back in the front seat… Once again I shake my head at how these American women live.”

Although he doesn’t recognize its significance in the moment, Behrani’s first encounter with Kathy cements the opinion of her he maintains throughout the novel. To Behrani, Kathy represents everything wrong with American culture. He seems particularly hung up on the impropriety of a woman sleeping in her car, which he feels indicates of a lack of moral integrity in American women.

“‘You ever get used to that?’ I said. ‘What?’ I nodded out the window at the slowing traffic. ‘People you don’t know being scared of you.’ ‘You really think they’re scared?’”

This conversation between Lester and Kathy, before they begin their affair, is the first subtle suggestion that Lester’s policework might not be wholly selfless. Kathy’s suggestion that people might fear him is met with surprise that, considering Lester’s feelings about police work, appears feigned. In fact, it’s later revealed that Lester gets a rush out of the power he is permitted to exert over others through police work.

“This sort of freedom I will never understand. What manner of society is it when one can do whatever one feels like doing?” 

Behrani succinctly articulates his problem with American life. Given his past service as a military officer in a dictatorship, he is accustomed to a culture that demands discipline and curtails certain personal freedoms. For him, the most challenging aspect life in America is the expectation that others be allowed to behave in whatever manner they please.

“For a second, I had the thought there was still time to spit it out, but if there was an Enemy Voice in my head it was the one that would keep this from me, the swallowing, the dry heat spreading out in my chest; it was such a familiar taste and feeling inside me, almost like it’d never left, that I suddenly felt more like my true self than I had in I didn’t know it how long.” 

Upon taking her first drink of alcohol in several years, Kathy quickly panics before embracing her relapse. This quote speaks to Kathy’s sense that whatever happens to her is inevitable and unchangeable. This also demonstrates how little she learned from the Rational Recovery program, which would most likely recognize Kathy’s rationalizations as the so-called “Enemy Voice” she dismisses so easily.

“There’s a hardness that happens, this dulling of everything that leaves you feeling minus instead of plus, hollow instead of solid, cool instead of warm; men always hear everything so wrong. I told Lester I felt lost and he instantly thought it’s because I’m living out of a suitcase. I didn’t know this until he said that, but I guess I was expecting more from him, from his sad eyes and crooked mustache, his narrow shoulders and dark skin, the Mexican songs of his youth; maybe I expected some kind of wisdom.”

This is Kathy’s first feeling of real disappointment in her whirlwind affair with Lester, which sets her expectation that they often talk at cross purposes and leads her to doubt his intentions and commitment later in the story. It’s a subtle shift in their relationship, as Kathy becomes more deferent to Lester’s control of the action even as she doubts capacity to understand her feelings.

“I sit and I regard these cows, these radishes, and I again think to myself: These people do not deserve what they have.” 

This statement gets to the heart of Behrani’s dissatisfaction with the American people and way of life. By his reckoning, Americans are a soft people who take their quality of life for granted. This quote is especially important because it gives a clear picture of the framework with which he approaches Kathy, who he believes is spoiled and poorly disciplined.

“I feel quite tired and hope our guests will leave very soon. For days I have been looking forward to this dinner, to seeing my only daughter again, but like so many things in this life it is never as you dream it.” 

At the dinner party the Behranis throw for Soraya and her new family, Massoud feels humiliated by his daughter’s apparent embarrassment at her family’s modest new home. More broadly, this moment speaks to Behrani’s overarching sadness concerning his exile from Iran and his family’s turn of fortune. While he remains determined to provide for his family, he recognizes that his best days are behind him and that, from this point forward, the dream will always be better than reality.

“I went over and hugged him. He felt to me like an old friend, though I didn’t have any. It must feel like this though; they’re warm against you and you love and respect them and are on their side no matter what.” 

This quote shortly proceeds Kathy saying that she feels like Lester and his friend Doug are treating her like a little sister. At this point in the narrative, Kathy is seriously questioning her relationship with Lester. Although she feels strongly for him, much of her attraction is based on the simple need for companionship and friendship. In the brief time they’ve known each other, Kathy has relapsed and come to terms with Nick leaving her. This description of her feelings toward Lester belies a more dramatic uncertainty about their importance to one another.

“But I recall my daughter’s face, the fashion in which she regarded me at her homecoming dinner, the aggressive and rude way in which she all night long repeatedly apologized for the family’s present living situation by recalling our old life.” 

Recalling Soraya’s visit with her new in-laws, Behrani worries that she will disapprove of the new life he hopes to forge as a real estate investor. While Behrani seems most concerned with his ability to provide for Esmail’s future, he reveals here that he feels anxious about living up to his daughter’s expectations. This is especially painful because the luxurious life she has come to expect from her father has been, since their arrival to America, a performance. Given that she is unaware of the hard labor Behrani has performed to maintain that lifestyle, the disappointment Soraya appears to express regarding his new enterprise is doubly hurtful.

“I took one last look around the bathroom, put on my sunglasses, and left, thinking this is wrong; it’s so wrong to invade someone else’s home.” 

Kathy reflects on her guilt for breaking into a client’s home to bathe and steal clothes. We are meant to draw a parallel between her remorse for her actions and her feelings about the Behranis’ supposed invasion of her home. Even though Kathy feels guilty, her circumstances have pushed her to behave in a manner she feels is immoral.

“Sometimes in this life, only one or two real opportunities are put before us, and we must seize them, not matter what.” 

After Lester’s threats against his family, Behrani describes his rationale for staying and selling the house instead of backing off and leaving. More generally, this quote describes Behrani’s overall attitude toward life, which has taught him to seek opportunity at every turn. This is both a criticism of his willingness to set aside moral consideration to achieve his goals and a testament to his willingness to do anything necessary for himself and his family.

“At the top of the page was someone’s Middle Eastern writing. The letters were beautiful, long curving lines and loops and ovals, some with two or three dots marked in or around them, others underlined with a long snakelike curve. It looked exotic to me, and somehow the sight of it gave me even more hope as I wrote in very plain English, in neat block print, my situation.” 

It is not entirely clear why the sight of the notes written in Farsi give Kathy so much hope. This is the last time that Kathy believes it might be possible for her to achieve reconciliation with the Behranis, before she attempts to kill herself and before Lester holds them captive. The marriage of Farsi and English on the page, written plainly enough for Nadi to understand, hints at the possibility of finding common ground across their personal and cultural divisions.

“I had never been […] a girl with girlfriends. Now, twenty years later […] 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.” 

Kathy sees a group of teenaged girls in the mall and feels a pang of jealousy for the life she could have had. This quote speaks to the depths of Kathy’s loneliness, as she feels inadequate in all her relationships. These feelings of inadequacy keep her from taking control of her life—and the house conflict—into her own hands.

“The panic of the weak never helps the strong.” 

Behrani says this to justify his decision to not immediately tell Nadi about Kathy’s first attempted suicide. Behrani has little faith in the strength of Nadi and Esmail, who are more sympathetic toward Kathy. This axiom explains why Behrani chooses not to heed their advice and speaks to the qualities he values in himself and others.

“Lester began to feel as inauthentic a man as was possible, living in a marriage he no longer felt, working as a law enforcer when he’d never been able to face any man down on his own, to serve or protect anyone without the San Mateo County Sherriff’s department behind him.” 

Lester’s feelings of failure and inauthenticity, as they are expressed here, sit at the core of his actions. He is eager to escape these feelings in whatever manner possible, which leads him to behave recklessly and selfishly when he threatens the Behranis. As he reveals here, he is fundamentally insecure in his capacity as an authority figure, which ultimately makes him dangerous.

“I pressed down on the cap, turned, and pulled it off, my hands trembling, a chill up my arms and back, my nipples erect against a shirt I’d stolen from a girl, somebody’s daughter, one I would never have, a son either. Family waste. My road was a circle of shit, rising up to the west only to fall back to the east, to this.” 

As Kathy prepares to make her second suicide attempt, she contemplates the arc of her life. Her thoughts turn to family and motherhood as she reflects on her failure as a daughter and would-be mother. This quote also reiterates Kathy’s feeling of predestiny—in the moment before she swallows Nadi’s pills, Kathy expresses a tangible feeling that this situation was inevitable.

“He told himself to keep the weapon at his side, no need to dig a deeper hole, but the colonel’s face was so still, so impassive, the whites of his eyes yellowed with age and a world-weariness that seemed to reduce Lester instantly to no real threat at all, only a mere nuisance, like Kathy, like the dispute over this house; Lester had no choice but to push the square barrel up under the colonel’s chin.” 

This captures the essence of the standoff between Lester and Behrani, as the colonel refuses to bend to Lester in any meaningful way, and the deputy feels compelled to escalate things further. It also illustrates the compulsive nature of Lester’s escalation. Although his escalations are meant to demonstrate his authority, they are more indicative of his inability to control himself and his fear of losing whatever little ground he has over Behrani.

“I just want things to change.” 

Spoken by Kathy to Lester after her two attempts at suicide, this is a crucial explanation of Kathy’s orientation toward life in general. While she seems glad to leave behind the danger that accompanied the height of her addiction, she is equally concerned about being unable to meet her family’s expectations for her new life. She knows that she wants things to be different than they are, but her chronic inability to express what that difference might entail is perhaps her most tragic quality.

“His eyes were still on the boy’s, and he knew he should tell him the gun was empty, that he was calling dangerous attention to himself for no reason, but saying that would rob Lester of any leverage once he got the gun back, would make it impossible to get both Behranis back down the street and into the Buick and away.” 

This moment represents Lester’s ultimate moral failure, as he acts out of his own self-interest instead of protecting the innocent Esmail. This is both a personal failure and a professional failure in his capacity as a police officer. Although he has already taken illegal action against the Behranis, he has justified his actions, if only to himself, as being in service of a greater good on Kathy’s behalf. Here, that justification falls away, and Lester displays the sort of cowardice he has feared constitutes the core element of his being.

“I walk back and forth over the thin carpet, and I see the magazines, the colorful covers of famous men and women, the rich and beautiful, and I remember my hand in Shah Pahlavi’s; his palms were soft as the face of babies and on his smallest finger there was a ruby ring as large as a grape. For our excess, we lost everything.” 

Far too late to change anything, Behrani recognizes the parallels between the downfall of his country and the downfall of his family. In both cases there was an injustice that those in power recognized but refused to challenge. Just as the excesses of pre-revolution Iran led to its demise, Behrani’s refusal to acknowledge the injustice of Kathy’s situation leads to the death of Esmail.

“I no longer have legs, and there is a terrible sound in my ears, the deafening pitch of low-flying F-16s, my chest beginning to fracture, my abdomen heaving, heaving—something beginning to open and release, a warmth filling me, vodka and fire, the hot wind of a desert sky, the earth falling away beneath me.” 

In Behrani’s final moments, his mind races and he loses all sense of his surroundings. As he suffocates to death, he imagines hearing the same military jets he purchased from America on behalf of the Iranian military. This gives way to a warmth in his chest, which reminds him of the vodka he used to drink with his dear friend, General Pourat. In this moment he seems to finally receive punishment for his complicity in the atrocities perpetrated by the Iranian government even as he rejoins his lost friend in a final celebratory drink.