Zeitoun
“Zeitoun,” by Dave Eggers, is a swift, affecting work of literary nonfiction that also works as an essential piece of American journalism.
Count Mr. Eggers as another object of my overactive writer’s envy. This guy has penned screenplays (the fantastic, eerie “Where the Wild Things Are”), novels (“You Shall Know Our Velocity”) and an experimental memoir (“A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”).
He’s also the founder and editor of an independent publishing house (McSweeney’s). Oh, well, at least he’s not smooching Fiona Apple, like another writer I envy, er, admire.
Eggers, who has a degree in journalism, obviously flexed some investigative muscle for this book. It takes place in New Orleans immediately before and after Hurricane Katrina turned the city inside out.
The story’s protagonist, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, is a Syrian American, a devoted husband and father with an evolved moral character. His family flees before the storm, but he stays to weather the hurricane and look after his home. When the immensity of the disaster grows clear, Zeitoun hops in a canoe and proceeds to save all manner of sentient beings.
Then the universe turns absurd. I won’t spoil the story, but I think that you will be outraged at his fate. As a reader, I read with lightning speed largely because I needed the narrative to resolve itself: I couldn’t leave Zeitoun stranded in his straits.
To a degree, I was already versed in the dreamlike absurdity of NOLA after the storm. The San Antonio Express-News sent me to the city just after the levees broke. I watched the ailing masses suffer at the Convention Center for many days as paramedics kept their distances.
One scene that I witnessed is still branded into my brain. Here’s an excerpt from a daily article I wrote in the city:
At an intersection a few blocks away, a small band of paramedics, police officers and firefighters stood watching a building burn steadily to the ground.
The officers, armed with 9 mm handguns and 12-gauge Remington shotguns, drew their weapons at a man driving toward them in an old Cadillac.
“Go! Turn around!” they yelled, aiming their shotguns at the driver.
Local paramedics, sitting exhausted on the curb, expressed their unwillingness to approach the convention center.
“Our main focus is to take care of our own agencies, the police and the Fire Department,” an EMS paramedic said.
“You think it’s safe for us to go to the convention center?” another paramedic asked. “No.”
That attitude pretty much sums up the suffocating atmosphere of paranoia that managed to choke out the compassion that so many people so desperately needed in the wake of the storm.
I am ashamed to admit that it infected me to a degree. In 2005, I had just been hired at the newspaper, and the assignment in New Orleans was my first real job as a reporter. I was green and terrified at the rampant (and mostly fictional) reports of raped, murdered babies and roving, armed gangs in the city.
Eggers’ “Zeitoun,” then, is not only a great book, but also a parable: a call for calm in the midst of crisis. Highly recommended.
