Zeitoun

Eggers' empathetic and unusually suspenseful non-fiction account of heroism during Hurricane Katrina
Abdulrahman Zeitoun is a father of four who, were he not an actual person, might be too kind, brave and smart to be a plausible character. Zeitoun is a non-fiction narrative by Dave Eggers that tells the story of a Syrian-American business owner and family man living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Eggers begins his tale three days before the storm hits, on August 26th of 2005, with Zeitoun and his wife, Kathy, waking up to calls from contracting clients asking advice on storm preparations. Within days, the storm has hit and Kathy has fled to Arizona with the children, leaving her husband behind at his insistence. What follows is a familiar sequence of events made fresh by Eggers's minute account of the title character's experience — an account equal parts tragedy and heroic tale with none of it, to the author's credit, ringing melodramatic.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius established Eggers as a brilliant craftsman and a writer of vast emotional insight, but his last several works — Zeitoun included — have revealed a third facet of his talent: a mastery of suspense. If Zeitoun is gripping in the way that good fiction can be, it also resonates disturbingly with truth.