Some of you may recall my thoughts on Dave Eggers' What is the What, his nonfiction novel about one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, and his first long-form foray into writing the accounts of human rights victims. (See Eggers' Voice of Witness foundation for more information on this project.) Zeitoun is his second book along this vein, although it's billed as strict nonfiction, presumably because Eggers doesn't need as much novelistic license in recreating his main character's backstory.
[Disclaimer: Before writing this, I broke one of my cardinal rules and read a couple reviews of Zeitoun, so whatever I say will most likely be tinted with shades of other folks' opinions. I can't help it. For some reason, that's how I roll. Onward.]
Zeitoun's main character is Abdulraman Zeitoun, New Orleans resident, father of four, and small-business owner (he's a paint contracter and small-time landlord, to be precise). He's Syrian-American, an American citizen born and raised in Syria in a strong, sea-faring family; he's married to an American woman, Kathy, who helps him run his business; both devout Muslims, they have raised their children to be observant. The narrative describes the life of the Zeitoun family in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, during the storm, and in the subsequent weeks. Obviously, their perspective - that of Zeitoun and Kathy - is unique: not only are they invested residents of New Orleans, one of whom (Zeitoun) refused to leave during Katrina, but they are also members of the most marginalized culture in American society following 9/11. As their story unfolds, both Kathy and Zeitoun undergo experiences that are both indelible records of the horrors carried out after Katrina and microcosms of the paranoia and xenophobia that saturated the United States in the early, post-9/11 years of the Bush administration.
What is the What was a novel - a novel about a real person, but a novel all the same. Zeitoun, on the other hand, is chillingly, achingly real. Eggers writes with the uncluttered clarity of a journalist, and I appreciated all the more the submission of his own ego to the larger arc of the story. Even more importantly, Eggers refuses to make polemic a story that so easily could be used as an example in a larger critique of the Bush-era human rights violations; rather, Zeitoun is rigorously controlled, focused on the details and import of the Zeitouns' experience. Their experience speaks for itself, and Eggers is smart enough to know it.
It's similar, in many ways, to Tom McCarthy's 2008 film, The Visitor, which deals with similar themes but refuses to expound on them directly. Rather, both Eggers and McCarthy let their characters be real, breathing, living human people (which is always difficult, even in Eggers case, in which the characters are real people), rather than ideological mouthpieces.
Sure, there were more than a few moments when I had to remind myself that there was an author shaping the story, that our belief in the story is wholly contingent upon our trust in Eggers as a reliable author. After a while, however, I decided that Eggers (and, in fact, the whole Zeitoun family) has been nothing but transparent about their ordeal (you can read more about their lives on the Zeitoun foundation's website), and that it would be an insult not to accept their story as truthful.
The book is incredibly poweful. I can't tell you the number of times I stopped reading, looked up, and said, "Oh, my god," aloud. And I can verify that I spent at least an afternoon exploring strategies to extract myself from any kind of government participation. And I cried a couple of times.
So go read it... if you dare.
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