Zeitoun

“They existed before, and they exist again, in the city of New Orleans and the United States of America. And Abdulrahman Zeitoun existed before, and exists again, in the city of New Orleans and the United States of America. He can only have faith that will never again be forgotten, denied, called by a name other than his own. He must trust, and he must have faith. And so he builds, because what is building, and rebuilding and rebuilding again, but an act of faith?”

A couple weeks out from my first trip to New Orleans, I thought I would read this book to learn more about Hurricane Katrina from a more personal perspective. It happened when I was in middle school. I remember hearing a lot about it on the news, but as with most distant tragedies, the details have since faded from my memory. This book details the journey of a man named Abdulrahman Zeitoun before, during, and in the aftermath of Katrina. Zeitoun, originally from Syria, is a successful contractor, business & property owner. He is also a caring father, dutiful husband, and devout Muslim. While his family evacuated to stay safe from the storm, Zeitoun stayed behind hoping the warnings were overblown and to watch over his various properties. When the city flooded, roofs of homes barely peaking out over the expanses of increasingly putrid water, Zeitoun did not mourn his luck but rather pulled up his canoe and took this as an opportunity to help those who had been even less fortunate than him. In an unfortunate twist, he is assumed to be a looter/possible terrorist and is detained at a make-shift mega prison, and it only gets more disgusting from there.

Paced beautifully, this reads like a fiction and is an absolutely riveting read. It exposes not only the devastation of the storm, but how the botched response exposed incredible injustices in our justice system. Yet, as in the quote above, both Zeitoun and the book end with a glimmer of hope about what it is to be American, and what it is to be resilient. Wonderful book.

I found this semi-biographical book to be harrowing, mostly because it describes an actual account. Keeping that in mind, I also realize that Abdulrahman and Kathy have contributed to this book from memory, and stressful, traumatic times can lead to some exaggerations. However, I think that this book is largely truthful and clear, and quite realistic. I can easily imagine this scenario in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and it's a good depiction of what still goes on (secretly, away from the public's eye) today, particularly after the Ft. Hood massacre.

This book speaks as a tale against the United States' policies in emergency preparedness as well as its incompetency in determining who poses a terrorist threat. But it also points out the importance of being able to tell the difference between the quintessential American immigrant and a threat to national security.

I read this book in 2013, several years after its publication. In the past few years certain events have taken place with the Zeitoun family that have significantly influenced my perception of these characters and events before I even picked up the book. In essence, I approached reading this book knowing the characters' future, and I couldn't help that it colored how I saw their story. Info within the spoiler.

Zeitoun beats Kathy several times, once with a tire iron out in public. He then tries to hire someone to kill her and their son. mylink text

Even knowing the information laid out in the spoiler before reading this book, my heart still went out to Zeitoun and the rest of the family as I read about their ordeal during and after Hurricane Katrina. The book is extremely well written, maximizing the intensity of every situation. At times I was literally on the edge of my seat, leaning forward as if that could somehow help me read faster.

This is a riveting non-fiction account of the experiences of the Zeitoun family during and after Hurricane Katrina. Abdelrahman Zeitoun is a Muslim Syrian immigrant who came to New Orleans, was naturalized, married an American woman and built a successful house painting business in the years leading up to Katrina. When the hurricane came, Zeitoun stayed in the city to keep an eye on his house and other properties, while his wife and children left to stay with relatives out of the path of the storm. In the first few days after the hurricane struck, Zeitoun traveled around the city in a canoe, trying to help whomever he found. Then he was abruptly arrested and put in prison. The story quickly turns dystopian.

I was a big fan of Dave Eggers' What Is the What–his plain narrative style let the heartbreaking events of that book speak for themselves. His style is the same here and it is just as effective. He also weaves Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun's past memories and experiences into the story of the hurricane in a way that made me feel I had entered their family and heightened my anxiety on their behalf.

In a way this is both a heartwarming story and a terrifying one. I recommend it.