In the novel's final scene, Kathy, unable to speak after her final encounter with Behrani, mimes a request for one more cigarette. Kathy and Lester are arrested and await trial. Believing Kathy to be dead, he dons his Army uniform and suffocates both himself and his wife, who had been asleep in the bedroom. He returns to the house to find Kathy still there and attempts to strangle her. When Behrani finds out in the hospital that his son has died, he is overcome with grief and rage at both Lester and Kathy. When Lester takes the Behranis to the county office, Behrani's son, Esmail, retrieves the gun and is shot by authorities. Lester breaks into the house and locks the Behranis in their bathroom at gunpoint until they agree to return the house to Kathy. The Behranis manage to stop her both times and she is put in a bedroom to rest. In desperation, Kathy goes to the house and attempts to commit suicide twice, first trying to shoot herself and then overdosing on pills. 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. House of Sand and Fog is a 1999 novel by Andre Dubus III.

House of sand and fog plot summary