Zeitoun

by Dave Eggers · 2009

In August 2005, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian-born painting contractor, stays behind in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approaches, paddling a secondhand canoe through the flooded city to rescue trapped neighbors and feed abandoned animals. His wife Kathy, evacuated with their children, waits anxiously for news as the city descends into chaos. When Zeitoun is swept up in a post-storm security crackdown and disappears into a makeshift, lawless detention system, the family's ordeal exposes the panic, prejudice, and breakdown of due process that followed the disaster. Dave Eggers reconstructs the true story of one family caught between a natural catastrophe and a man-made one.

Books mentioned in Zeitoun (2)

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy: “(epigraph) in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime … Cormac McCarthy, The Road”
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: “Kathy made lunches while the three girls sat at the kitchen table, eating and reciting, in English accents, scenes from Pride and Prejudice.”