House of Sand and Fog

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999

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Part 1, Chapters 17-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary

Behrani drives Nadi to San Francisco for a hair appointment and again feels disgusted with the Americans around him. He regards them as weak, ungrateful, and childlike. As they drive home, he half-listens to Nadi’s plans for the party.

Upon returning home, they see Kathy waiting in their front lawn. Nadi believes she is one of the carpenters’ girlfriend, and Behrani plays along, taking Kathy aside and saying she has come to collect some tools her boyfriend left.

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Kathy tries to soften Behrani by appealing to his compassion, telling him that the house was left to her by her father. Behrani is unmoved and encourages her to take up her complaint with the county. He takes Kathy somewhat forcefully by the arm and leads her to her car, against her protests. After she gets in, Behrani watches as she drives away.

Part 1, Chapters 18-19 Summary

Kathy angrily chain-smokes as she drives to Connie’s office. The lawyer informs her that her only recourse is to sue the county for damages if Behrani won’t sell. Kathy returns to the hotel and gets a call from Lester, who has broken up with his wife and left his family. He meets Kathy at the hotel the next day, and they share beers in her room. They commiserate about their difficulties, and Lester says a friend is lending him a fishing cabin where they can both stay. They go out driving, and Kathy asks Lester to pass by the house, where she sees Behrani and several other finely dressed people drinking champagne on the widow’s walk. She makes eye contact with Behrani before Lester quickly drives away.

Behrani and Nadi’s dinner party draws to a close. He feels disappointed and saddened by his daughter, who spent the evening regaling the party with memories of her upper-class childhood in Iran, which Behrani understands as a rebuke of his diminished social status. He is also troubled by Kathy’s unexpected appearance, which made him feel “accused of a crime [he] did not commit” (135). As he waits for everyone to leave, Behrani recognizes that his family’s future depends on the success of his investment in the house.

Part 1, Chapter 20 Summary

Kathy and Lester stock up on groceries before driving to the isolated cabin, drinking beer as they drive. Kathy promises herself she won’t drink anymore that evening but fails almost immediately when Lester offers her a glass of wine while she cooks.

The next morning they clean the cabin, which doesn’t have a bathroom, gas, electricity, or running water. After Lester chops some firewood the two have sex, which is followed by a conversation in which Lester says he wouldn’t enjoy it if Kathy didn’t. Although she’s playfully skeptical, Kathy says she believes him.

Part 1, Chapter 21 Summary

Because Esmail overheard his father’s confrontation with Kathy the previous day, Behrani explains that they were able to afford the house because Kathy failed to pay her taxes. He tells Esmail he shouldn’t mention anything to Nadi. Although he doesn’t like lying to his son, Behrani enjoys speaking frankly with Esmail about their family’s situation, as “it is an important moment for Esmail, to have his father confide in him for the first time” (143).

Later Behrani prepares to show the house to prospective buyers, lamenting that it will be too foggy to see the ocean from the house.

Part 1, Chapters 17-21 Analysis

In Behrani and Kathy’s first face-to-face meetings, both mistake the other as more powerful and wealthy than they are. This is accomplished somewhat subtly in Chapter 17, when Behrani takes note of Kathy’s “expensive sedan” as she drives off, not realizing that the car was a gift from her brother. In Chapter 18 Kathy and Lester drive past the house while the Behranis are hosting a dinner party. Seeing the family dressed in their finery and drinking champagne, Kathy assumes that Behrani is financially well-off, when he is struggling to project an image of financial stability that he doesn’t truly possess.

Meanwhile, Behrani’s efforts to impress Soraya’s new family fall somewhat flat, and he experiences a profound melancholy as he reflects on the party. In addition to talking too loudly about their family’s past, Behrani caught Soraya “viewing [him] with a distant sadness” (135). He notes, “it is clear to me that my daughter does not respect me as she once did” (135). In this instance Behrani is an unreliable narrator. Whether Soraya feels ashamed of her father’s diminished social status is less important than Behrani’s perception of that disapproval, which reveals his shame in his inability to provide for his family the way he once did as a high-ranking member of the Iranian military. This points to the novel’s overarching theme about misperception. Behrani’s belief that Kathy is a reckless person allows him to excuse his own actions even when they aren’t necessarily correct. This episode with Soraya is an early indication that this assumption-making goes both ways and isn’t purely self-serving. The ease with which Behrani self-deprecates through his perception of Soraya’s judgment reveals that his impulse to impose his subjective perspective on the world is equally likely to reinforce harmful aspects of his psyche.