In Andre Dubus III's novel, House of Sand and Fog, the concurrence of pleasure and disquietude causes a perplexity in the reader's mind which serves several purposes to the progression and quality of Dubus' story. The coexistence of these two contrasting sensations allows the genre of the novel to teeter convincingly between romance (pleasure) and thriller (disquietude) by providing examples of the extremes of both genres. Also by being subjected to a sense of enjoyment and anxiety, the reader is allowed to comfortably and fluidly read the novel, even though it is told from the two different perspectives of the primary characters Kathy Nicolo and Colonel Behrani. And, although in some parts of the novel the quantities of pleasure and disquietude become unsatisfactorily unbalanced, for the most part Dubus succeeds in using this story-telling technique effectively.

Disquietude is instilled in the reader when the tension between Kathy and...