As the novel’s title suggests, Dubus juxtaposes sand and fog to illustrate the multifaceted, often contradictory nature of the conflict surrounding the beach house. Setting the story in and around California’s Bay Area, famous for the fog that descends over the San Francisco Bay, allows Dubus the opportunity to cast his characters in the bright light of the beach or in the gloom of fog as he sees fit.

The narrative uses the beach to evoke hope and the promise of prosperity. After buying the house at auction, Behrani installs a widow’s walk to provide a view to the ocean and thereby increase the house’s market value. This directly pairs access to the beach with Behrani’s aspirations for a better life for his family. Conversely, the fog represents trouble. This is witnessed early on when, during one of their first encounters, Lester looks out over the bay and remarks to Kathy that the “fog’s coming in” (89). Here, fog foreshadows the trouble that unfolds throughout the novel.

By pairing hope and trouble to natural phenomena, Dubus suggests that the entanglement of positive and negative feelings and actions is as inevitable and unchanging as the fog’s encroachment on the beach.