Excerpt from House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Of course I argued many times for a more reasonable place to live, but Nadi fought me; we must keep up our appearance. We must act as if we can live as we are accustomed. All because it was the time of hastegar for our Soraya, when young men from good families send roses to her and our family, when their fathers call me to talk, and their mothers call Nadi to introduce. If there is no family match, there can be no match. And naturally, because our daughter is very beautiful, with long straight black hair, a small face, and the eyes of a queen, she had many offers and of course could not make up her mind. Meanwhile, Nadi had to make certain our daughter did not attract any common Persians; she ordered all the best furniture and lamps and carpets. On the walls she has hung French paintings, and the mosaic-frame portrait of the battle of martyrdom in the Karbala. On the silver coffee table are crystal bowls filled with pistachios, dates, and fine chocolates. And near the sliding glass doors to the terrace are fresh green plants as large as small trees.

There are many other Persians living in the building, all rich, all pooldar. Many of them are lawyers and surgeons. One was a judge in Qom, our holy city before it became the headquarters for the mad imam, but the mullah is dead now and we still are on the list of those who will be hanged or shot if we are to return home. He left behind many such lists as that.

I think of these things as I look over at Mendez, sleeping in the shade, his brown stomach visible beneath his peerhan. When we flew from France--Nadi, Esmail, and I--I carried bank checks worth two hundred eighty thousand dollars. A man like Mendez would drink that money, of this I am quite certain. But many nights my sleep does not come when I think of how unwisely I let that sum be burned up, burned because my dear Nadereh could not and cannot bear to let other families know we have next to nothing left from the manner in which we used to live. If I had been stronger with her, if I had not been so sure I would have work soon with Boeing or Lockheed, making a respectable salary, then I most for certain would have invested in real estate. I would have told Soraya her hastegar must wait for a year or two, I would have rented us a modest apartment under one thousand dollars per month, and I would have purchased a partnership in an office building or perhaps even a residential property in a growing neighborhood of new homes. I would have watched the market like a wolf, then, in short order, I would have sold for an honest profit only to do it again.

We have forty-eight thousand dollars remaining, this is all, an amount my fourteen-year-old son will need for the first two years of university alone. It has been my hope to begin a business with this, but I fear now to lose it all, to become bankrupt like so many Americans. Of course, I have always seen the samovar as half full, and Nadi may have been right; Soraya has married a quiet young engineer from Tabriz. He holds two Ph.D.s in engineering and we can rest to know she will be taken care of and I thank our God for that. The young man's father is dead and that is a pity because he is supposed to have been a fine businessman, a possible partner for myself. Perhaps it is the seized property I must begin to view, the used, the broken, the stolen. Perhaps there is where we can get our start.

Because our work is finished at half past three, the sun is still high as Torez drives us through San Francisco down Van Ness Street. I sit with Tran and the Chinese opposite the Panamanians, and I look over the pig's head of Mendez--he stares at me with the tanbal eyes, the lazy eyes of a man who wants sleep then more wine--and I regard all the mansions of Pacific Heights, the high walls covered with white and yellow flowers, the iron gates that allow in only fine European automobiles: Porsches, Jaguars, even Lamborghinis, the cars of the old Tehran. My driver in the capital city, Bahman, he drove for me a gray Mercedes-Benz limousine. Inside was a television, a telephone, and a bar. Under Shah Pahlavi, we all had them. All the high officers of the Imperial Air Force had them.

Excerpted from House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III Copyright© 1999 by Andre Dubus III. Excerpted by permission of Vintage, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.