ZEITOUN by Dave Eggers (McSweeney’s Books, 2009)
Young, trailblazing writer and publisher Dave Eggers tackles this nonfiction story about a Syrian-born U.S. citizen who waits out Hurricane Katrina to terrible effect. Zeitoun is a hard-working contract painter, landlord and devout Muslim who lives with his wife and children in New Orleans. His wife, Kathy, who converts to Islam when she marries Zeitoun, leaves the city as the hurricane approaches while Zeitoun stays behind to look after their properties. After the storm Zeitoun is seized by an sense of “urgency and purpose” and takes to the flooded streets in his metal canoe to assist the stranded and suffering but, to his deep dismay, what he encounters is “apocalyptic and surreal” as the entire city devolves into “an animalistic state.” Clearly written and well-paced, Eggers recreates the harrowing and shocking post-Katrina turns in the life of this innocent immigrant in the Land of the Free (9/10).
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