On a recent episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the famed talk show hostess urged her viewers to go out and buy the latest selection for her book club - The House of Sand and Fog by Tufts' English department lecturer Andre Dubus III. Dubus will give a reading today of his book at 3:30 p.m. in the Austin Room of the Tisch Library.
The House of Sand and Fog is Winfrey's 38th book club selection, as well as her self-proclaimed "favorite read of the year." As is well known to authors, publishers, and other industry moguls, this means instant sales - and, in this case, some publicity for Tufts and its faculty.
Glenn Whidden, Trade Book Department Manager at the campus bookstore, spells it out: he doesn't know of a single book in Oprah's Book Club that hasn't gone on to be a bestseller. "[Dubus] is on the verge of being the most successful fiction writer we've had [at Tufts]," he said. "He's definitely a rising star."
The novel, a National Book Award finalist, was published in February 2000 and has been garnering national attention. "Oprah is the most powerful bookseller on Earth," Whidden said. "Being picked for Oprah's Book Club has got to be a feather in [Dubus'] cap."
Part of the pull of Winfrey's picks is the mystery that surrounds her choices. According to Whidden, she usually calls the author and the publishing company to notify them of the pick; however, neither party is allowed to spill the good news. The book is then shipped to bookstores all over the country in advance, marked as a book club pick, sans title. The only thing that booksellers know for sure, Whidden said, is that the contents of those boxes is about to become a major success.
This publicity also translates into recognition for the University. "[The attention] is pretty terrific for Tufts," Whidden said.
Sophomore Dan Kalik, who had Dubus as his English 2 professor last semester, agreed. "It's good publicity for the school. I know that my mom and her friends go the bookstore and look for the Oprah book and pick it out... probably it will say Tufts [on the book]," he said, illustrating the widespread following of the book club.
Kalik went on to relate Dubus' success to his own experiences with the professor. "It's exciting to think that the person who taught me how to write now has the Oprah Book Club of the Month," he said. "He was a really personable professor...[his class] was the best English class I've probably ever taken."
Whidden also had kind words for Dubus, who spoke at a smaller gathering at the bookstore when The House of Sand and Fog was published. "He's willing to take time and talk to anybody who's interested in his book," he said. "He's a nice guy and a very engaging speaker."
Dubus also published a book in the mid-'90s entitled Bluesman, which is currently out of print, but will be re-released in February 2001. "[Bluesman will receive] more attention than it did when it first came out," Whidden predicted.
The House of Sand and Fog captures the immigrant experience in the US. The novel opens with Massoud Amir Behrani, a once wealthy colonel in the Iranian military under the Shah, struggling with the job search in America. To keep up appearances, Behrani lives a lifestyle that he cannot afford. After his daughter gets married, he decides to purchase a house at an auction, butting heads with the previous owner of the house, Kathy Nicolo, a self-destructive alcoholic who wants the property back.
The house represents of the possibility of the "American Dream" for Behrani, while it echoes a sense of stablity for Nicolo, creating an engaging struggle between the two characters. "Dubus tells his tragic tale from the viewpoints of the two main adversaries, Behrani and Kathy. To both of them, the house represents something more than just a place to live... In prose that is simple yet evocative, [The] House of Sand and Fog builds to its inevitable denouement, one that is painfully dark but unfailingly honest," said one reviewer, Alex Wilber, on www.amazon.com.
