Zeitoun by Dave Eggers: The Review

Like any significant disaster, the statistics associated with Hurricane Katrina are upsetting--the fatalities, an entire city in ruins. But behind the mechanics of strong winds, levees breaking, and lives taken, are the indirect effects the disaster had on the residents of New Orleans in 2005. True, the media has featured numerous interviews with native New Orleanians, and Dave Eggers, author of Zietoun, even claims in his author's note that “This book does not attempt to be an all-encompassing book about New Orleans or Hurricane Katrina.” But Eggers journalistic account of one New Orleans family in Zietoun is much more comprehensive than any other source I've come across.


Zeitoun follows one man, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, through his experience during and in the wake of the catastrophe. Zeitoun, as he's nick-named, is a native Syrian but American dream-inspired family man. He's propelled into every day by his father's hopes and expectations for him and he's in touch with his Syrian relatives as often as possible. Zeitoun owns his own prospering painting and contracting business in New Orleans. His job is to watch over the various New Orleans properties he has come to invest himself and his business in, and he continues to do so in the midst of the hurricane.

Not only does Zeitoun feel responsible for the upkeep of property, but the residents of New Orleans as well. Once Katrina's damage is essentially finished, Zeitoun proceeds to paddle around the city in a canoe he'd bought a few years prior at a yard sale. He makes it his mission to aid neighbors and senior citizens who are unable (or refuse) to evacuate by providing provisions or rescuing them from their forced rooftop residence.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Zeitoun family is packed into a relative's house in Baton Rouge, barraged daily with horror-stories featuring post-Katrina damage while awaiting their husband/father's arrival.
   
All throughout the telling of the family's Katrina experience, Eggers sprinkles details of Abdulrahman's and Kathy's family histories and their pasts together and apart. Even if the reader was able to detach completely from the Zeitoun family whilst reading, which may be impossible given the amount of detail and, thus, relatability, Eggers provides in his characters, the shocking (to some, at least) course of events that takes place in New Orleans as witnessed by Abdulrahman Zeitoun would still inevitably cause the reader to feel a mixture of outrage and despair, the majority of which would probably be directed at the United States and its government.

As a Syrian in the United States post-9/11 and stuck in the chaos of Katrina, Zeitoun becomes vulnerable to, and eventually the target of terrorist accusations. His mistreatment by government forces is simultaneously horrifying and the fuel for the page-turning second portion of the book. Though the entirety of Zeitoun is a page-turner--no small feat in the world of nonfiction--the second half is especially suspenseful.

Eggers does a phenomenal job with the tough task of organizing all the material that comprises Zietoun and his literary style is strictly journalistic and to the point. For those looking to discover more than just the story of a family's hardship during Katrina and the government's dealings with the crisis, don't expect a philosophical or literary revelation from Zeitoun. The story is a work of journalism--it is free of political undertones while still providing the reader with an in-depth look at the trauma that many may not have been able to discover, or really grasp, until a safe amount of time and distance had been established since the disaster.

(Zeitoun is a required summer reading book for all high school students at Germantown Friends. Enjoy!)

-Zoe Feingold