Zeitoun
by Dave Eggers
When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. Eggers’s riveting nonfiction book explores Zeitoun’s roots in Syria, his marriage to Kathy — an American who converted to Islam — and their children, and the collision between the Bush administration's War on Terror and its response to Hurricane Katrina.