Commentary
Dave Eggers returns to his journalistic roots with this nonfiction account of one family's surreal experiences in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Abdulrahman Zeitoun is a Syrian immigrant who seems to epitomize the American dream. In 2005, he was running his own successful business while raising four children with his wife, Kathy, an American who converted to Islam. When Katrina hit, Zeitoun's home and business sustained serious damage, but they were salvageable, and he chose to remain in the city to protect them. He found himself paddling a canoe through the eerie silence of the flooded streets of the city, lending a hand to various people in need whenever possible. Then, he vanished.

Eggers spent three years researching these events and working closely with the Zeitoun family to understand what happened, and the disturbing details of story he uncovered illustrate the atmosphere of fear which pervaded the Big Easy in the wake of the disaster. He uses Zeitoun's experience to brilliantly illuminate how the most pertinent issues of our time--xenophobia, terrorism, the flawed justice system, and FEMA's abysmal response to Katrina--are mere branches protruding from a trunk of distrust between the American government and the citizens of the world.

Reviews
"ZEITOUN is an old-fashioned journalistic yarn, an oral history rendered in literary form that seeks both to inspire and outrage its readers. Entirely free of authorial asides, its innovative quality lies in its thoroughgoing rejection of the 'me journalism' that has dominated reporting for three decades or more... At first, as a reader, I felt some resistance to this tactic -- could the Zeitouns possibly be as wholesome and all-American as Eggers depicts them? -- but the sheer momentum, emotional force and imagistic power of the narrative finally sweep such objections away."

Andrew O'Hehir

"Anybody who's ever been thrown by Eggers' ego as a writer...will be impressed by the plainness of his storytelling in ZEITOUN. It's Abdulrahman, not Eggers, who is important here, and Eggers reveals a sweet, modest and poetic side as a writer that is very appealing....ZEITOUN is a warm, exciting and entirely fresh way of experiencing Hurricane Katrina."

Dan Baum

"[Eggers] doesn't try to dazzle with heartbreaking pirouettes of staggering prose; he simply lets the surreal and tragic facts speak for themselves. And what they say about one man and the city he loves and calls home is unshakably poignant--but not without hope..."

Chris Nashawaty

"Dave Eggers tells the man's tragic story and puts a human face on what may be the worst natural disaster in U.S. history....Eggers appreciates that writers of privilege have the responsibility to speak for those whose voices might not otherwise be heard. In Zeitoun, he tells a story made more upsetting by the fact that although it surpasses our worst nightmares, it is absolutely true. It is a major achievement and his best book yet."

Andrew Ervin

"In ZEITOUN, what Dave Eggers has found in the Katrina mud is the full-fleshed story of a single family, and in telling that story he hits larger targets with more punch than those who have already attacked the thematic and historical giants of this disaster. It's the stuff of great narrative nonfiction....50 years from now, when people want to know what happened to this once-great city during a shameful episode of our history, they will still be talking about a family named Zeitoun."

Timothy Egan