Zeitoun

     Zeitoun by Dave Eggers is a novel about the Zeitoun family and their experience during hurricane Katrina. The Zeitoun's are a muslim family living in New Orleans, the father, Abdulrahman (though everyone called him Zeitoun), immigrated from Syria and started a painting and contracting business. The mother, Kathy, a Baton Rouge native, converted to Islam and helps run the business and care for their three daughters and her one son. Since this is a true story about a real family, it goes into great detail about the family themselves, little stories from their past, how Zeitoun and Kathy met, Zeitoun's life in Syria, and how the business is fairing. It alternates between the perspectives of Zeitoun and Kathy. This book would be a great way to introduce that type of writing style.

When Katrina was coming up on New Orleans, Kathy and the kids left for Baton Rouge to stay with a few of her sisters. Zeitoun decided to stay behind. He was able to save a lot of the family's belongings when the levees eventually broke and the city was drowned in about 15 feet of water. My favorite parts of this book are when Eggers is describing how the world looks when covered with water. Zeitoun has a canoe in which he paddles around the city, helping save stranded people and animals. He lives like this for a while, keeping in contact with Kathy through a phone that still works in one of the rental houses he owns. Zeitoun and three other men who are using the phone are later arrested for "looting"...in their own home. They are all taken to a makeshift jail behind the Greyhound station (which was built using man-power imported from the Louisiana State Pen. only days after the storm) , not given a phone call, or read their rights. They are accused of being terrorists and are made to stay in a cage outside containing only a metal rail and expected to sleep on the filthy ground. These conditions persist for several days, when finally they are put on a bus and taken to a prison in St. Gabriel. They are still denied a phone call, and as hard as Zeitoun tries he is unable to convince anyone that he is innocent until finally gets a priest to contact Kathy on his behalf. From there the book covers Kathy's efforts to get Zeitoun out of prison. She is met with people who tell her the location of the hearing is “classified information” and a bunch of other ridiculous things that, had the government been working properly, would never have happened. Though eventually Zeitoun is released from prison, it was apparent that the judicial system was not working for a very long time after the storm, and many people suffered because of that.

Reading this book gave me a lot of emotions. At some points I was disgusted with the actions of people in power, and the actions of the prison system as a whole. Racial and religious profiling are still a problem in America and this book just reinforced the fact that the care and safety of POC and low income individuals are not a priority in this country. It makes me very sad that the people and institutions put in place to protect citizens could do such a botch job. I understand that after the hurricane nothing was working properly, but it seems silly to prioritize building a temporary jail instead of using those resources and money to save the hundreds of civilians who were trapped in their homes. Climate disasters wreck the whole system.