© 2009 Dave Eggers
In his new nonfiction book, Zeitoun, New York Times best-selling author Dave Eggers tells a Hurricane Katrina story unlike any written before. When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun—a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four—chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the eerie days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and rescuing those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. Eggers’s riveting work, three years in the making, follows Zeitoun back to his childhood in Syria and around the world during his years as a sailor. The book also traces the story of Zeitoun’s wife Kathy—a boisterous Southerner who converted to Islam—and their wonderful, funny, devoted family. When Zeitoun vanishes, Kathy is left to make sense of the surreal atmosphere (in New Orleans and the United States generally) in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun was possible.
