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---

# Zeitoun

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Zeitoun [Eggers, Dave] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Zeitoun

Review: The drama of Katrina - Abdulrahman Zeitoun is a Syrian American who was falsely imprisoned in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But Dave Eggers' narrative nonfiction is not about a confrontation between the U.S. and Islam after 9/11. It is a book about what a colossal f---up the rescue efforts were. It is above all a very personal story about how one man reacted to danger and responsibility and how that affected his family. Zeitoun was arrested in flooded New Orleans on suspicion of looting. He was arrested along with another Syrian American and two white Americans. Under the circumstances, the arrest itself was not a grievous miscarriage of justice. The subsequent treatment of all four men and the violation of their civil rights was. Zeitoun is released on bail after 20 days. He did not eat or sleep well during his captivity, so he lost 20 pounds and looked a good deal older. His family, worried literally sick because he had no opportunity to call them, and especially his wife, were traumatized. But the others arrested with Zeitoun on the same flimsy evidence were held much longer -- six to eight months. We are not even sure from Eggers' account if one or the other of them wasn't actually guilty of looting. Zeitoun himself, whom the reader comes to know fairly well, castigated himself for his "hubris" in staying in New Orleans because deep down he wanted to emulate the heroism of his older brother, a champion swimmer who was prematurely killed in a car accident in the full blossom of youth. Even if he was justified in staying through the storm to take care of his house, his business and his rental properties, and even if he was able to help rescue stranded people in the first days of flooding, he owed it to his family, he felt in retrospect, to have availed himself of emergency evacuation possibilities as the crisis dragged on. He didn't evacuate and although he evaded encounters with armed gangs he was in suspicious enough circumstances to get arrested. He was together with the other three men in his rental property, where the landline phone still worked, with a blue and white motorboat that had been seen in a looting incident and electronic equipment piled on the dining room table to save it from the flood waters. It didn't help that two of the men arrested had large amounts of cash with them. The narrative of Camp Greyhound and the Hunt prison is riveting and dramatic. In some ways it overshadows some equally interesting narratives. The back story of Zeitoun growing up in Syria and roving at sea for 10 years before settling in Louisiana and courting his wife, Kathy, a young divorcee and convert to Islam. The narrative of Katrina and its aftermath was for me the most gripping. Like a good catastrophe film, the book eases into the event showing people going about their lives as usual, as radio bulletins of increasing seriousness warn of Katrina's approach. Zeitoun's family evacuated and he remains in his home, placing buckets to catch leaks as the storm blows over. He uses his secondhand canoe to silently paddle through flooded neighborhoods, hearing cries for help and summoning rescue teams for an elderly couple, a disabled woman and others. He hears dogs trapped in a couple of houses and finds a way to feed them, returning every day to give them food and water. He visits his rental properties, his mosque, he pitches a tent on the flat roof of his garage to escape the heat and odor of the house. Zeitoun is a resourceful, honest man that you cannot help but admire. Whatever his motivation, he responds generously and courageously to the unexpected crisis resulting from the storm. Perhaps it would have been wiser to evacuate, but it was hardly hubris to stay. He could not anticipate the grief that would come to his family when his arrest made him suddenly incommunicado. One tie keeping him in the city was the need to feed those dogs, who in the end died of starvation during his captivity, a note of true pathos. Eggers tells the story resolutely from the point of view of Abdul and Kathy Zeitoun. We are asked to swallow without comment Kathy's feeling of "liberation" as a woman in Islam, even though we know that women in Islam do not enjoy anything like what we would consider equality or freedom. The generosity and caring of the Muslims in the narrative are contrasted with the callousness of the non-Muslims, including Kathy's own family. It is all true, but of course it is not the whole story. The book is what is now called narrative nonfiction. Dialogue is fabricated on the basis of recalled conversations. Interior monologues are based on long interviews with the subjects. There are touching family photos. In his earlier book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Eggers, by his own account, compressed incidents and timeframes. Since he makes no mention of it here, he presumably is not doing it in this book. In any case, the book reads like a good novel. It takes us inside characters, it transports us into a dramatic situation, it moves to a climax and it leaves us transformed in some small way. While Eggers' earlier book, which I have not read, was a type of memoir, this is more journalism the way Tom Wolfe envisioned it in The Right Stuff and his other early works. The writing is elegant but not showy, letting the story grip the reader directly. It is artful, but the art achieves a transparency like that described by Roland Barthes in The Degree Zero of Writing -- the language does not refract or distort the meaning but conveys it with great lucidity. Zeitoun reduces the drama and catastrophe of Katrina to a personal story that each of us can relate to. It gives the freefloating outrage that all of us instinctively feel about the criminal incompetence of the rescue efforts a focus on a genuine injustice and real harm to a family. It shows us that just because the Zeitouns, like so many others in New Orleans, are able to move on, damaged but resourceful and hopeful, does not remove the injustice that was done. Probably few will ever pay for the crimes committed, but that is no reason to forget the misdeeds and no reason not to punish those we can.
Review: A Moving Story About a Good Man in an Impossible Time - Zeitoun is a moving story about a good man in an impossible time. The simplistic tone of the text contributes to the story flow. This is a story about a man, an extended family, a time, and the disaster following Hurricane Katrina. The simplicity of the writing keeps the story moving forward. The first half of the book tells us about a man, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Muslim Syrian immigrant to New Orleans, his business, his wife Kathy, and their extended family. Zeitoun is a hardworking, decent, husband, father and employer who provides quality contracting services in New Orleans. A portion of his life and perspective is colored by his Muslim faith. As American readers, we are accustomed to seeing protagonists' lives colored by their Catholic, Fundamental or Jewish faith, and it may seem a little odd to watch a protagonist whose life is colored by a faith with which are not as familiar. Zeitoun's faith is not much of an issue, until the deluge of Katrina, and then his faith appears to color both his perceptions of how he is treated and also effect the treatment he receives. I imagine Tim Tebow affects others in similar ways and feels similar effects. The second half of the book deals with the collapse of civil society in New Orleans following Katrina and the 23 day imprisonment of Zeitoun. Eggers describes the Kafkaesque nightmare of the innocent in prison. The imprisoned have no access to counsel, much less the ability to make a phone call to their families. The imprisoned are subjected to repeated abusive conduct; humiliating searches; pepper spraying; inadequate medical care; and a judicial system that seems to perpetuate the broken system rather than try to fix it. To me, however, the story of Zeitoun's incarceration and failings of the justice system, seem far less interesting than the story of the man and family that have also been trapped and overwhelmed by the aftermath of Katrina. In an afterword, Eggers apologizes for the prison conditions as being "simply overwhelmed after Katrina." This apology by the author seems inconsistent with his protagonist's observations on the well-organized logistical efforts of men and machines required to create the prison, when compared to the disorganized logistical efforts of those attempting to rescue the civilians in New Orleans. Eggers compares the damage done to innocent, imprisoned individuals by our "blind grasping fight against threats seen and unseen," with bycatch. I think Eggers gives too much credit to those engaged in the "war on terror." Unlike those engaged in the fishing industry that provides food for many people, large portions of the "the war on terror," such as the costly and ineffective Potemkin security villages created by TSA, seem directed not at keeping us safe, but at giving the appearance that someone is trying to keep us safe. In the end, however, the question may not be the good faith or bad faith of our security forces, but whether the overall effects justify the real, and devastating effects on the bycatch, those collaterally damaged by our war on Islamic terror. At end of the book, I was left wondering what happened to Zeitoun's cellmates. Zeitoun was released from confinement, partially as the result of frantic familial efforts, after 23 days. His cellmates, equally innocent, spent 5 months, six months and 8 months. Maybe these cellmates are just stand-ins for thousands of other innocents accused. Although I understand this is the story of Zeitoun and his family, I would feel better about Zeitoun, if I knew what he had done, upon his release, to assist his cellmates, as he had assisted his neighbors. Maybe the whole experience was so exhausting, that he simply had nothing else to give. Maybe he did all he could. As a reader, I just don't know. This unanswered question about the apparent abandonment of his comrades leads me to question the protagonist's reasons for his earlier ordinary acts of heroism. In any event, Zeitoun is a compelling read and brings life to two separate stories that repeat, and here are intertwined in America: the immigrant experience and disasters. The combination of these stories is both entertaining and educational. I recommend it.

## Features

- Dave Eggers, Zeitoun, paperback

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #440,959 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #37 in Natural Disasters (Books) #157 in Disaster Relief (Books) #591 in U.S. State & Local History |
| Customer Reviews | 4.3 out of 5 stars 2,698 Reviews |

## Images

![Zeitoun - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81nU7QEPl0L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The drama of Katrina
*by D***E on October 15, 2011*

Abdulrahman Zeitoun is a Syrian American who was falsely imprisoned in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But Dave Eggers' narrative nonfiction is not about a confrontation between the U.S. and Islam after 9/11. It is a book about what a colossal f---up the rescue efforts were. It is above all a very personal story about how one man reacted to danger and responsibility and how that affected his family. Zeitoun was arrested in flooded New Orleans on suspicion of looting. He was arrested along with another Syrian American and two white Americans. Under the circumstances, the arrest itself was not a grievous miscarriage of justice. The subsequent treatment of all four men and the violation of their civil rights was. Zeitoun is released on bail after 20 days. He did not eat or sleep well during his captivity, so he lost 20 pounds and looked a good deal older. His family, worried literally sick because he had no opportunity to call them, and especially his wife, were traumatized. But the others arrested with Zeitoun on the same flimsy evidence were held much longer -- six to eight months. We are not even sure from Eggers' account if one or the other of them wasn't actually guilty of looting. Zeitoun himself, whom the reader comes to know fairly well, castigated himself for his "hubris" in staying in New Orleans because deep down he wanted to emulate the heroism of his older brother, a champion swimmer who was prematurely killed in a car accident in the full blossom of youth. Even if he was justified in staying through the storm to take care of his house, his business and his rental properties, and even if he was able to help rescue stranded people in the first days of flooding, he owed it to his family, he felt in retrospect, to have availed himself of emergency evacuation possibilities as the crisis dragged on. He didn't evacuate and although he evaded encounters with armed gangs he was in suspicious enough circumstances to get arrested. He was together with the other three men in his rental property, where the landline phone still worked, with a blue and white motorboat that had been seen in a looting incident and electronic equipment piled on the dining room table to save it from the flood waters. It didn't help that two of the men arrested had large amounts of cash with them. The narrative of Camp Greyhound and the Hunt prison is riveting and dramatic. In some ways it overshadows some equally interesting narratives. The back story of Zeitoun growing up in Syria and roving at sea for 10 years before settling in Louisiana and courting his wife, Kathy, a young divorcee and convert to Islam. The narrative of Katrina and its aftermath was for me the most gripping. Like a good catastrophe film, the book eases into the event showing people going about their lives as usual, as radio bulletins of increasing seriousness warn of Katrina's approach. Zeitoun's family evacuated and he remains in his home, placing buckets to catch leaks as the storm blows over. He uses his secondhand canoe to silently paddle through flooded neighborhoods, hearing cries for help and summoning rescue teams for an elderly couple, a disabled woman and others. He hears dogs trapped in a couple of houses and finds a way to feed them, returning every day to give them food and water. He visits his rental properties, his mosque, he pitches a tent on the flat roof of his garage to escape the heat and odor of the house. Zeitoun is a resourceful, honest man that you cannot help but admire. Whatever his motivation, he responds generously and courageously to the unexpected crisis resulting from the storm. Perhaps it would have been wiser to evacuate, but it was hardly hubris to stay. He could not anticipate the grief that would come to his family when his arrest made him suddenly incommunicado. One tie keeping him in the city was the need to feed those dogs, who in the end died of starvation during his captivity, a note of true pathos. Eggers tells the story resolutely from the point of view of Abdul and Kathy Zeitoun. We are asked to swallow without comment Kathy's feeling of "liberation" as a woman in Islam, even though we know that women in Islam do not enjoy anything like what we would consider equality or freedom. The generosity and caring of the Muslims in the narrative are contrasted with the callousness of the non-Muslims, including Kathy's own family. It is all true, but of course it is not the whole story. The book is what is now called narrative nonfiction. Dialogue is fabricated on the basis of recalled conversations. Interior monologues are based on long interviews with the subjects. There are touching family photos. In his earlier book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Eggers, by his own account, compressed incidents and timeframes. Since he makes no mention of it here, he presumably is not doing it in this book. In any case, the book reads like a good novel. It takes us inside characters, it transports us into a dramatic situation, it moves to a climax and it leaves us transformed in some small way. While Eggers' earlier book, which I have not read, was a type of memoir, this is more journalism the way Tom Wolfe envisioned it in The Right Stuff and his other early works. The writing is elegant but not showy, letting the story grip the reader directly. It is artful, but the art achieves a transparency like that described by Roland Barthes in The Degree Zero of Writing -- the language does not refract or distort the meaning but conveys it with great lucidity. Zeitoun reduces the drama and catastrophe of Katrina to a personal story that each of us can relate to. It gives the freefloating outrage that all of us instinctively feel about the criminal incompetence of the rescue efforts a focus on a genuine injustice and real harm to a family. It shows us that just because the Zeitouns, like so many others in New Orleans, are able to move on, damaged but resourceful and hopeful, does not remove the injustice that was done. Probably few will ever pay for the crimes committed, but that is no reason to forget the misdeeds and no reason not to punish those we can.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Moving Story About a Good Man in an Impossible Time
*by N***A on December 31, 2011*

Zeitoun is a moving story about a good man in an impossible time. The simplistic tone of the text contributes to the story flow. This is a story about a man, an extended family, a time, and the disaster following Hurricane Katrina. The simplicity of the writing keeps the story moving forward. The first half of the book tells us about a man, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Muslim Syrian immigrant to New Orleans, his business, his wife Kathy, and their extended family. Zeitoun is a hardworking, decent, husband, father and employer who provides quality contracting services in New Orleans. A portion of his life and perspective is colored by his Muslim faith. As American readers, we are accustomed to seeing protagonists' lives colored by their Catholic, Fundamental or Jewish faith, and it may seem a little odd to watch a protagonist whose life is colored by a faith with which are not as familiar. Zeitoun's faith is not much of an issue, until the deluge of Katrina, and then his faith appears to color both his perceptions of how he is treated and also effect the treatment he receives. I imagine Tim Tebow affects others in similar ways and feels similar effects. The second half of the book deals with the collapse of civil society in New Orleans following Katrina and the 23 day imprisonment of Zeitoun. Eggers describes the Kafkaesque nightmare of the innocent in prison. The imprisoned have no access to counsel, much less the ability to make a phone call to their families. The imprisoned are subjected to repeated abusive conduct; humiliating searches; pepper spraying; inadequate medical care; and a judicial system that seems to perpetuate the broken system rather than try to fix it. To me, however, the story of Zeitoun's incarceration and failings of the justice system, seem far less interesting than the story of the man and family that have also been trapped and overwhelmed by the aftermath of Katrina. In an afterword, Eggers apologizes for the prison conditions as being "simply overwhelmed after Katrina." This apology by the author seems inconsistent with his protagonist's observations on the well-organized logistical efforts of men and machines required to create the prison, when compared to the disorganized logistical efforts of those attempting to rescue the civilians in New Orleans. Eggers compares the damage done to innocent, imprisoned individuals by our "blind grasping fight against threats seen and unseen," with bycatch. I think Eggers gives too much credit to those engaged in the "war on terror." Unlike those engaged in the fishing industry that provides food for many people, large portions of the "the war on terror," such as the costly and ineffective Potemkin security villages created by TSA, seem directed not at keeping us safe, but at giving the appearance that someone is trying to keep us safe. In the end, however, the question may not be the good faith or bad faith of our security forces, but whether the overall effects justify the real, and devastating effects on the bycatch, those collaterally damaged by our war on Islamic terror. At end of the book, I was left wondering what happened to Zeitoun's cellmates. Zeitoun was released from confinement, partially as the result of frantic familial efforts, after 23 days. His cellmates, equally innocent, spent 5 months, six months and 8 months. Maybe these cellmates are just stand-ins for thousands of other innocents accused. Although I understand this is the story of Zeitoun and his family, I would feel better about Zeitoun, if I knew what he had done, upon his release, to assist his cellmates, as he had assisted his neighbors. Maybe the whole experience was so exhausting, that he simply had nothing else to give. Maybe he did all he could. As a reader, I just don't know. This unanswered question about the apparent abandonment of his comrades leads me to question the protagonist's reasons for his earlier ordinary acts of heroism. In any event, Zeitoun is a compelling read and brings life to two separate stories that repeat, and here are intertwined in America: the immigrant experience and disasters. The combination of these stories is both entertaining and educational. I recommend it.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is a page turner with substance!
*by S***R on August 7, 2009*

I struggle all the time with "must" when it comes to giving advice to other people. Who am I to tell you what to do? Will you forgive me this one time? Because if you do, you will learn some important things by reading this book. You MUST read Zeitoun. Especially if you live in one of those areas -- like I do -- that can be struck by a natural disaster. Most of us do now, don't you think? With global warming, there are more fierce hurricanes, more tornados. And just the other day I looked at an old National Geographic magazine's map of where earthquake areas are in the world -- there's a lot of them! And I live in the San Francisco Bay Area ... so we think about them all the time -- that is, when we're not in a state of denial. You better hope hope hope and pray (if so inclined) that you are never in a natural disaster of huge proportions like the poor folks in New Orleans were! The natural disaster parts are bad enough ... but what is far worse is the army of "helpers" who come in later: National Guard, FEMA, law enforcement from other areas. That's when the real tragedy will happen. These people don't know you. They've been told to watch for looters. And like one of the quotes says in the front matter of this important book: To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Every person looks like a looter. Or a terrorist if you've got a Middle Eastern-sounding name. That's what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun. At the time of Katrina, he was (and still is) a citizen and successful businessman in New Orleans. Think of it: you're well-known by your community and a successful businessman -- yet, after Katrina, you are thought of as a looter and terrorist. Without any proof. No evidence whatsoever. No hearing for weeks. No phone call. The phone call. It's that special part of the U.S. judicial system: the phone call. We're taught about this all the time as children: if you're arrested, you get a phone call. The worst serial killer gets a phone call. Don't count on it after a disaster. In a disaster with our friends from FEMA in control you become one of the Disappeared -- and yes, they are the ones in control -- and now that they are a part of Homeland Security they have even more control and an even worse attitude -- to an employee from FEMA, everyone looks like a looter and a terrorist. And what about you, woman in your 70s -- do you really think your safe? Read about the tale of Merlene Maten. She was 73 and a diabetic. She and her husband had fled their home before the hurricane and checked into a downtown hotel thinking they would be safer there. After three days, Maten went down to their car in the parking lot next door to get some food they had in the car. She was arrested for looting. It made no sense! Yet she was arrested anyway. Folks, this is what is so striking when you read this book: the "helpers" -- law enforcement, National Guards or whatever -- do not listen to you if you are just regular folks. Remember, you're a nobody. They don't listen to your story ... they don't look at the real facts: you're 73 and diabetic and you're at *your* car getting food. They don't take the time to see if you really are checked into that hotel next door. They just arrest you. You better hope hope hope and pray that a disaster doesn't head your way. I want to thank Dave Eggers for writing this book -- and for all the important things he does with his abundant energy. Good stuff. Thanks. From deep down. I hadn't read any of his books before, glad I started with this one. The writing is so very good too. The book is a page-turner. It's not depressing at all. The book has a main story -- the story about the Zeitouns -- plus lots of other very interesting stories. Although watch out! If you were mad about how folks in New Orleans were treated before -- WATCH OUT -- you're gonna be furious by the time you finish this book.

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*Last updated: 2026-04-30*