Book 12: Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

Here it is! A book I liked!

Dave Eggers sure has changed since the last time I encountered him, in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which I might retitle, A Massively Self-indulgent Work of a Guy Who Wants Us to Think His Title is Ironic, but Really He Thinks It's Pretty Much Spot-on. I'm certainly not the first to note the contrast; in fact I don't know that I've read a single review that didn't mention his first book and how very different this one is. It's a hard thing not to notice; Zeitoun is about as unselfish and non self-indulgent book--in both purpose and voice--as you're likely to find.

Eggers tells the story here of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian immigrant and contractor in New Orleans, and the ordeal he and his family (an American born wife and 4 children) go through in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I won't give away details, other than to say that Zeitoun stays behind in New Orleans while his family evacuates, but I'll say that Eggers tells a startlingly compelling and effective story here. He does it with only an occasional passing reference to Bush or FEMA, without lengthy lectures about ineffective bureaucracy or criminal negligence, but his story of this one family manages to give you all of that anyway. The prose is spare but effective, and Eggers disappears entirely as he tells Zeitoun's story (based mostly on interviews with the Zeitouns themselves).

I suppose I'm doomed to see everything through the lens of North Korea this year, but it was hard not to make comparisons as Zeitoun's story (and the story of New Orleans itself) rapidly descended into tragic absurdity. Zeitoun's experience rivals anything I've read about North Korea, and the similarities are sometimes eerie. I was thinking a few weeks ago, while reading Nothing to Envy, that reading about North Korea is easier emotionally than it probably should be because it seems so unreal and far away. Zeitoun's descriptions of the American government at work after Katrina brought that line of thinking into perspective.

Also, because I've always felt that books and movies need really explicit warnings about stuff that might give me nightmares, and to continue along the same lines of warning you about the squirrel torture in Ender's Game, I will disclose that this book should come with a "Warning: Dogs in Distress" label. There. Now you know.