"
House of Sand and Fog" is a novel by the American writer Andre Dubus III in which the principal characters engage in a struggle
over possession of a
house. The
paper shows that the house functions as a symbol of membership in American society and the combatants -- an immigrant Iranian colonel and a woman recovering from cocaine addiction -- have more than money at stake in their fight to own a home to which each has a legal right. The paper explains how the tragic plot is driven by the failure of the parties to communicate and by their suspicions of each other based on their prejudiced views of each other's cultures.