From the bestselling author of The Circle
The true story of one family, caught between America's two biggest policy disasters: the war on terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina.
Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun run a house-painting business in New Orleans. In August of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approaches, Kathy evacuates with their four young children, leaving Zeitoun to watch over the business. In the days following the storm he travels the city by canoe, feeding abandoned animals and helping elderly neighbors. Then, on September 6th, police officers armed with M-16s arrest Zeitoun in his home. Told with eloquence and compassion, Zeitoun is a riveting account of one family's unthinkable struggle with forces beyond wind and water.
A New York Times Notable Book - An O, The Oprah Magazine Terrific Read of the Year - A Huffington Post Best Book of the Year - A New Yorker Favorite Book of the Year - A Chicago Tribune Favorite Nonfiction Book of the Year - A Kansas City Star Best Book of the Year - A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year - An Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Decade
"Eggers' tone is pitch-perfect--suspense blended with just enough information to stoke reader outrage and what is likely to be a typical response: How could this happen in America? ... It's the stuff of great narrative nonfiction."--New York Times Book Review
About the Author :
Dave Eggers is the author of children's fiction, young adult fiction, science fiction, and more. His works have won the Newbery Medal, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, France's Prix Médicis, Germany's Albatross Prize, the National Magazine Award, and the American Book Award. He is the founder of McSweeney's, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco, and is cofounder of 826 National, a network of educational centers around the country offering free tutoring to kids of all backgrounds.
Firdous Bamji has appeared in numerous plays in New York and across the country and played the title role in William Shakespeare's Othello. He has played leading parts in world and American premiere productions of plays by noted playwrights, including Tom Stoppard, Tony Kushner, Eric Bogosian, and Rebecca Gilman. He has also had guest starring parts on Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU, and he was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award as Best Supporting Actor for his work in the film The War Within.
Review :
"Zeitoun is a poignant, haunting, ethereal story about New Orleans in peril. Eggers has bottled up the feeling of post-Katrina despair better than anyone else. This is a simple, beautiful book with a lingering radiance.
-- "Douglas Brinkley, New York Times bestselling author "
"Zeitoun is a story about the Bush administration's two most egregious policy disasters--the War on Terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina--as they collide with each other and come crashing down on one family. Eggers tells the story entirely from the perspective of Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun, although he says he has vigorously double-checked the facts and removed any inaccuracies from their accounts. 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."
-- "Salon"
"Zeitoun is a warm, exciting, and entirely fresh way of experiencing Hurricane Katrina...Eggers makes this account completely new, and so infuriating that I found myself panting with rage."
-- "San Francisco Chronicle"
"Zeitoun is an unusual book. It's not a big-screen picture of New Orleans in crisis. It's a portrait of one man--a patriotic and deeply religious immigrant--caught in the nightmare created by a natural catastrophe, exacerbated by government incompetence...An original look at a terrible time in America."
-- "USA Today"
"Zeitoun offers a transformative experience to anyone open to it, for the simple reasons that it is not heavy-handed propaganda, not eat-your-peas social analysis but an adventure story, a tale of suffering and redemption, almost biblical in its simplicity, the trials of a good man who believes in God and happens to have a canoe. Anyone who cares about America...will want to read this thrilling, heartbreaking, wonderful book."
-- "Chicago Sun-Times"
"Zeitoun...is an examination of America in the time of Katrina, an indictment of bureaucracy, a testimony to the possibility of goodness, a level-headed look at Muslim America, a heartbreaking rap sheet for the Bush years, all this and more...I was completely enthralled by this book."
-- "Guardian (London)"
"[Eggers] has entered new literary territory with a thoroughly researched, completely factual account of one man's struggles during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina."
-- "Time"
"A masterpiece of compassionate reporting about a shameful time in our history."
-- "O, The Oprah Magazine"
"A new book by one of America's most celebrated novelists has helped to turn Abdulrahman Zeitoun...into an improbable symbol of noble citizenship in the face of government ignominy. [An] epic story of ruthlessly punished good intentions."
-- "Sunday Times (London)"
"Audie Award nominee Firdous Bamji conveys the sense of pending disaster, the fear, the distress, and the ultimate sense of relief Zeitoun must have felt upon his release. This Kafkaesque story is sure to shock, horrify, and outrage listeners...It should be required reading/listening to ensure that nothing like the events described here will ever be repeated."
-- "Library Journal (audio review)"
"Brings together the archetypal absurdities of the Bush era, the 'War on Terror' and the Katrina debacle, to tell a simple story, but one laced with political significance."
-- "Independent (London)"
"Distills the sprawling chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina into a single family's story...[Eggers] brings a novelist's eye to the tale."
-- "Wall Street Journal"
"Eggers uses techniques of imaginative nonfiction to great effectiveness. The devices always remain in the service of the dramatic rendering of Zeitoun's impossible situation."
-- "Huffington Post"
"Eggers...has given us twenty-first century Dickensian storytelling--which is to say, a character-driven potboiler with a point. But here's the real trick: He does it without any writerly triple-lutzes or winks of post-modern irony. There are no rants against President Bush, no cheap shots at the authorities who let this city drown. He does it the old-fashioned way: with show-not-tell prose, in the most restrained of voices."
-- "New York Times"
"Eggers' sympathy for Zeitoun is as plain and real as his style in telling the man's story. He 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."
-- "Entertainment Weekly"
"Firdous Bamji retains a strikingly calm tone while describing these racial injustices and false accusations...Bamji remains quietly and smoothly factual, neutral yet warm. Another bone-chilling, and fresh, account of this most egregious domestic policy disaster."
-- "AudioFile"
"Through the story of one man's experience after Hurricane Katrina, Eggers draws an incredible picture of Bush-era crisis management."
-- "New Yorker"
