Slog Commenter Book Report: Mara Loses, Finds Zeitoun

I hope you’re coming to our next Slog Happy. I’ve got some great books to give away. But until then, I’ll continue posting Slog Commenter Book Reports of books I’ve given away in the past. The newest one is from Mara, who came out to Slog Happy and grabbed a copy of Dave Eggers’ non-fiction novel Zeitoun.

Last month, I was excited to snag a copy of Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun at The Unicorn. Unfortunately, I was only about 20 pages in when I left it backstage at the Triple Door. I hope it found a good home, because once I got a replacement copy from the library, I had trouble putting it down. Here’s my report:

Zeitoun is Dave Eggers’ latest book, a non-fiction account of a Syrian-American family’s experiences during Hurricane Katrina. The book grew out of interviews with the family over the course of several years, and it reads like a first-person account. Eggers builds full portraits of the main character, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, and his wife Kathy, incorporating their thoughts and memories into the account of events before, during, and after the storm.

The book is also full of gorgeous images, both from Zeitoun’s childhood in Syria and from the surprisingly peaceful moments that occurred after the storm had passed. By focusing on one family’s story, Eggers gently pulls the reader away from any abstract preconceptions about Katrina, or Muslim Americans, or the immigrant experience, and into a singularly vivid account of reality, in its stunning and terrible complexity.

Many thanks to Mara for sharing; if you’d like to send me a book report, you can do so by clicking on these here blue words.