Dave Eggers

Zeitoun

Laura Mauler

I read this book in 2013, several years after its publication. In the past few years certain events have taken place with the Zeitoun family that have significantly influenced my perception of these characters and events before I even picked up the book. In essence, I approached reading this book knowing the characters' future, and I couldn't help that it colored how I saw their story. Info within the spoiler.

(view spoiler)[ Zeitoun beats Kathy several times, once with a tire iron out in public. He then tries to hire someone to kill her and their son. mylink text (hide spoiler)]

Even knowing the information laid out in the spoiler before reading this book, my heart still went out to Zeitoun and the rest of the family as I read about their ordeal during and after Hurricane Katrina. The book is extremely well written, maximizing the intensity of every situation. At times I was literally on the edge of my seat, leaning forward as if that could somehow help me read faster.

Jayme Cochrane

Just don't do any follow-up "where are they now" research ☹️

Describes how Abdulrahman Zeitoun remained in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, his subsequent efforts to help other victims, his disappearance a week later, and the effect of these events on his wife Kathy and their children.

Sabine Delorme

Dave Eggers erzählt stellenweise ganz schön langatmig die Geschichte der Familie Zeitoun die den typischen amerikanischen Traum leben. Abdulrahman, ursprünglich aus Syrien, hat sich als Handwerker ein Bauunternehmen aufgebaut, eine Familie mit einer zum Islam übergetretenen Amerikanerin gegründet und vier Töchter bekommen. Als in New Orleans mal wieder vor einem Orkan gewarnt wird, lassen sich die fleissigen Zeitouns anfangs so gar nicht von ihrem arbeitsreichen Alltag ablenken und gedenken den Sturm zu Hause auszusitzen.
Die ganze Rezension findet ihr hier: http://bingereader.org/2014/11/23/zei...

Melody Izard

I read this book while watching thick gooey tar-balls wash up on my beloved Gulf of Mexico beaches. Watching another disaster roll in on a community that I felt I belonged to was so similar to watching the hurricane target its eye on my sweet New Orleans. Oh yes – they’re mine – those beaches and those bourboned scented streets. What happens to them and to the life and culture of the Gulf region and the Crescent City happens to my soul. Zeitoun is the story of the aftermath of Katrina and the physical, cultural, and human toll caused by nature and human error and misplaced priorities. The memory of that time is too fresh. The parallels with the Gulf apocalypse is far too close. Maybe I should have chosen something more upbeat to read next other than War and Peace?

And the fact that the main character in the book has now been arrested for plotting the murder of his wife makes this all the more a downer.

Jennifer Dieter

** spoiler alert **
           Zeitoun captivated me from the first page. The story of one family's experience during and after Hurricane Katrina pointed to so many of the policy and procedure flaws that occurred after this horrific disaster. The sad part is we are still dealing with many of the same issues in this book 10 years later. Fear has overtaken our country and caused Americans to turn against other Americans because of their skin color or country of origin. I was curious to see what the Zeitoun family looked like, so I Googled the name after finishing this book. I am sad to see recent accusations of domestic violence and attempted murder against Zeitoun. I only wonder if this violence was a result of the trauma he experienced from the unlawful arrest and incarceration detailed in this book.

Steven Ovadia

Incredible and riveting. Eggers is a great story-teller. Finding out the sad ending to the tale that's not included in the book doesn't make the story any less amazing.

Jeni Enjaian

I have a hard time putting into words my review of this book. To start with, just after I began reading, I perused the reviews here on Goodreads and found a few that mentioned the possibility of Zeitoun having a less than savory character who pulled the wool over Eggers eyes throughout the telling of this story. I have not done research myself on the topic so I do not know whether these facts are true. However, these reviews and the possibility altered my perception of the book.

Even if I had read those reviews, I still think I would have been skeptical of the narrative. Even though Eggers purportedly told the actual story of a New Orlean's family affected in a devastating way by Hurricane Katrina and all that came with it, much of the book reads as rooted in the dramatic rather than the actual historic facts. Yes, Eggers wrote this book within a few years of the hurricane. However, he should have treated this story with a good deal more journalistic grains of salt. I think the story would have also been better served if Eggers included more historical facts rather than thoughts and feelings of individual people which are inherently unverifiable.

I found the book intriguing but did not really ever engage with the book. Eggers could have done a much better job. Many other people could have done a much better job.

Sara 

TOTAL LIE!! I Googled this guy, and he had a RESTRAINING ORDER put up against him to keep him away from his wife and kids because he ABUSED THEM!!

I.m. ruzz

** spoiler alert **
           for a contrarian like myself you wonder if this book had not been written by America's favorite literary son if it would have garnered the sort of attention that it has. Would phrases like "best non fiction book of the year" be tossed around so casually? Does that even matter when reviewing the book?

I think it does. I think you can't divorce the author's high literary profile from the work and still be honest in your evaluation of it. for example, there is much talk of the restraint he exercised when painting this non-fiction portrait of Zeitoun and his family. How he resisted being a demagog. How he resisted turning the story into a platform for the endlessly fun game of scolding America for being so broken. How he trusted the weight and motion of the actual real events to create the context, and let the "message" of the book assert itself. Hurrah for Eggers! Hurrah! he managed to avoid using some poor devastated muslim family as a tool for his own aggrandizement. 

except he didn't. 

before I get into why he didn't let me say the novel is beautiful. it's a very enjoyable read and despite the slow moving parts just before mid book it had a good pace and I was engaged throughout. You should read it. it is, despite it's overwhelmingly positive praise--a good book. okay, so thats out of the way let me explain why eggers failed. 

the principal failure of Egger's Zeitoun is Egger's profound love of the romantic. The raw romance of "a good man", a "hard working family", a "horrible injustice" rob the story of any potential for real connection with the characters. This flaw reduces this book from a potentially transformative book for the American psyche into just one more drop in the ocean of American propaganda. 

worse still, Egger's one dimensional portrait of Zeitoun effectively reduces the man to an archetype of the hard working, big hearted saintly immigrant feverishly pursuing the american dream while simultaneously acting purely out of family baggage over his great dead-too-early brother (who btw didn't cure cancer or anything, he was just a really good swimmer) and a desire to bring more pride to the family name. He loves children, animals, the elderly. He works day and night and does not cause trouble. he is friendly with everyone. A good father, a good husband. he's a "good" American. 

Zeitoun never has doubts. never mistrusts (even when being systematically stripped of his rights), never wavers in his commitment to Allah. His only sin is wanting to be good too much. his only crime a hubris which led him to stay and help while his city was under 15 feet of water. 

Does this sound like a real human being to you? Does it strike you as genuine? and knowing this very early on in this short book does it come as any surprise that he has no struggle to overcome in the book, no place for personal growth, or development? Does it also seem that given this setup the supposed heartfelt portion of the book would come through anything else than him being strong and virtuous against a broken system that strips him of his dignity, his rights, his humanity and feels no remorse for doing so?

does it come as any shock, then, that he stayed on in New Orleans and helped rebuild it? He stayed on and rebuilt his business and rebuilt his family home despite daily needing to come into contact with painful reminders of the injustices put upon him? 

none whatsoever. when you have only one gear, that of being a good man, the only conflict you can possibly face is being good in a world that chews good men up. and that's the romantic lie Egger's has foisted on the world through this work. That's the simplistic and flawed take only a deeply romantic writer enamoured with heros and villains would find from this story. It's the same vice that empowered George Bush. It's the same vice that empowers the Christian right, Michael Moore, and in a bit of true to life irony, was very likely the same vice that empowered those soldiers who kept Zeitoun prisoner to so adamantly deny his rights, so voraciously treat him like an animal rather than a human. 

Through this lens, Eggers cast's a portrait of good and evil, of tragedy on a greek scale, and brings us no closer to escaping the safe confines of black and white. he brings us no closer to seeing humans as full humans. they are either a collection of virtues we should admire, or a collection of evils we should vilify but nowhere in this supposedly restrained work are they both. 

Zeitoun's one flaw was wanting to be so good he acted stupidly and put him and his family in grave risk. Egger's one flaw was believing such a man might actually exist and basing the direction of this book upon that fantasy. In doing so he contributes to the very problem he tries to solve

In August, 2005, as Hurricane Katrina blew in, the city of New Orleans had been abandoned by most citizens. But resident Abdulrahman Zeitoun, though his wife and family had gone, refused to leave. For days he traversed an apocalyptic landscape of flooded streets by canoe. He protected neighbours' properties, fed trapped dogs and rescued survivors. But eventually he came to the attention of those 'guarding' this drowned city. Only then did Zeitoun's nightmare really begin. Zeitoun is the powerful, ultimately uplifting true story of one man's courage when confronted with an awesome force of nature followed by more troubling human oppression.

Gordon McLean

Interesting story, if a little long winded at times, some passages seemed only there to pad out the word count.

Worth googling what has happened to the family since, not happy reading :(

Zeitoun

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