Zeitoun is the biographical account of Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun, as written by Dave Eggars, encompassing their experiences in the days and weeks surrounding Hurricane Katrina. While the focus is on those events Eggars weaves in a significant amount of backstory to give us some insight into why the Zeitoun family felt as it did.
Zeitoun was Syrian born, Muslim, and spent years traveling the world working on ships before finally settling down in New Orléans. He had a successful construction company in New Orléans in the years leading up to Katrina. He married the younger Kathy, a Louisiana native and convert to Islam from her Southern Baptist upbringing.
The bulk of the story deals with the first person accounts of each member of the married couple as they dealt with the insanity of the aftermath of Katrina. Abdulrahman stayed behind to look after the properties his company was working on, to take care of his own home, and ended up using a small canoe he had recently bought to save several people trapped in their homes. After collecting a few people, who were also helping, at one of his properties, he was arrested. He was never charged with a crime, was never told why he was arrested, was never given the opportunity to even attempt to contact his family, and spent weeks being moved from one temporary prison to another. He was repeatedly accused of being involved with Al Qaeda. He was eventually released but never received as much as an apology, much less restitution of any sort.
This book will make you consider issues of faith. It will make you re-think an undying allegiance to certain political figures and their administrations. It will hopefully outrage you at times even if you disagree with the beliefs of the Zeitoun family. I would not handle this situation with the patience and grace that this family did. I also would have filed a much more comprehensive and antagonistic lawsuit sooner than they did.
If you feel like being challenged, this is a good book for it.
