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ralowe's review
1.0
didn't want it to get around that i was reading this, another eggers book. Sigh. the *zeitoun* concern(/neglect) becomes such a sprawling networked shitshow, you get sucked under its septic undertow. So what's the big deal? from before word one I've wondered why eggers looks abroad for injustice when we got the shit in spades right here in the bay? Why even move to the bay and set up (pirate) shop if you're not going to write about it? But eyes directed abroad don't notice that his garsh!-stumbled-into twee-bro expanded universe outlasts san francisco valencia street dyke culture. I needed to consult various voice of witness anthologies to track publication histories and authorial motive to sketch any basic assessment of one book. I'm so fucking annoyed. We have VOW's 2006 *voice from the storm* to thank for *zeitoun*, eggers culled abdulrahman's oral history to develop into his next big issue project, following *what is the what*. maybe i'm trying to understand what went wrong whatever this city maybe never actually was along certain crucial intersecting fronts; eager for succor, camaraderie, like minds: famous last words, my own secular humanist albatross blah blah blah. *zeitoun* was the san francisco public library's official annual "one city: one book"ќ selection ten years ago. you can look online and find the 30-page official report from SF mayor Gavin Newsom's task force on African American out-migration published the year before *zeitoun*'s selection. this was also the last full year after two decades that collective-run Modern Times Bookstore would spend at 888 valencia before their landlord tore up their lease. (i still dream about the huge space in the back where radical queer direct action group GAY SHAME would meet every Saturday. sure eggers"Уpositioned down the block at 826"Уoffered to help Modern times earlier on but by then people were giving walking tours about the mission's legendary dyke past.) although dave's brother bill worked on guiding russia into free markets with the heritage foundation, one should note eggers' own aesthetic aspirations of a masculinized upward stumble into oops neoliberalism: but this depends on whether one thinks teaching literacy should be public-privatized as it is at 826. social entrepreneurship appears defined by complex and disarming public-private artifact traditions that are worthy of an antiauthoritarian scan. *zeitoun*, published the year Oscar grant was murdered by bart police, was selected during the first full term of the 44th US president, barack obama, and this book feels like a proactive distillation of conservative anxieties regarding the relationship between blackness and muslim identity obama allegedly embodied. I'd argue there's an emerging coalitional anticolonial potential in this moment of "highconceptual"ќ intersection for a preliminary "enemy combatant"ќ identity that can be put to use to account for an anti-muslim state apparatus along with a visual narrative of the police murders of black people in the wake of Oscar grant; such an identity is fortified in that Obama officially abandoned the "enemy combatant"ќ phrase in march 2009; derisory light would shed on the FBI's term "black identity extremist"ќ before the agency would publicize its ostensible abandonment just last year. this cursory association doesn't demean the merit of earnestly tackling the issues or their overlap as part of a useful intercommunal project; but in the book's worst moments, when i'm trying to trace back how we got here, answering for the high-conceptual shadow of birtherism insinuates itself upon this coincidence with astonishing explanatory force. my thoughts go deep on eggers' choice to sensationalize as high-concept in lieu of fostering a concrete intercommunal collective project; my mounting belief in his aversion to the descendants of chattel slavery trapped in the US (hereafter black people). This thought only arises given this book, mcsweeney's voice of witness imprint, along with 2006's *what is the what*, feels like a white anti-racist project to confront anti-blackness without dealing with US slave descendants for an eggers who once, wracked with grief when his mother dies of cancer shortly after his father also dies of cancer, imagines, "a black man in an army jacket, the man i always picture when imagining being killed in such a way, always in an army jacket"ќ carjacking and murdering eggers on a snowy night on the south side of chicago"У"He'd tell me to kneel, and I would, and then without a word, he would shoot me twice in the back of the head"ќ (*ahwosg* page 386-387, 2000). it's not that I feel that Sudanese child soldiers or Syrians profiled as terrorists become merely tokenized pawns in a plot to serve eggers' primary concern of divesting blackness of political and aesthetic presence and value: i'm trying to figure out how to not look away from a submerged pattern, to account for it. This accusation of blackness' deferral by the marketing department implicates the Voice of Witness imprint of McSweeneys as well as the zeitoun foundation, all an uncomfortable social entrepreneurial mix of tax shelter and activism, as victims of, if not a primordial antiblackness, then some other narcissistic, faddish sociopathy: eggers puts his name on these commodities in big social entrepreneurial ways that feel like market research. It's about san Francisco black non-being: I bet newsom's running down of a task force's out-migration report was a pr stunt to boost SF property values. Given the flighty issue roulette of market trends, eggers' operation never dedicates itself to any one problem long enough to build a movement. Eggers doesn't need to fight against the displacement caused by Katrina when he could more effectively take a stand against the displacement he had a role in on Valencia, in the Mission, in SF; and definitely caused in other cities with the franchising of 826 in similar gentrifying neighborhoods across the US. But broadcasting the marketing aesthetics of the Obama-era post-racial antiblack bait-and-switch is the point. I think of the franchising of valencia dyke spatial erasure in 826s across the US; does teaching kids how to write require branding? I'm available for other explanations than meredith's cringingly prophetic ocean beach yimby rant (*a.h.w.o.s.g* pps 143-147). What eggers does is, of couse, no aberration in the publishing world nor in the larger mainstream of our terrifying neoliberal present. And although I'd be damned if I ever noticed voice of witness in either prison abolitionist or Palestinian solidarity spaces, it's still great that they do put books out on those issues. At the same time, All I know is people doing what they can. I'm just sayin'. I welcome commentary on any of my own numerous political inconsistencies. That said, the neoliberal shortchanging and tokenizing is a problem. what a potentially birther audience is meant to overcome via the prospect of catharsis offered in this mash-up is anyone's guess. Maybe one is meant to surmise against statistical data and direct experience that black people somehow are not disproportionately impacted by the US' legacies of institutionalized violence? it's fine to talk about what other communities face; eggers isn't trying to tell everyone's story (but he is trying to tell a lot of peoples' stories). This is merely me putting up a record of black deferral across touchstones of his more successful writing. BECAUSE: it's frustrating how far-reaching and embedded within the status quo's political state of the art eggers is, getting awards. It's disorienting; as the author's looking from the alleged safety of the obama-era publication date back to the president whom, to quote kanye, "doesn't care about black people,"ќ one might be expected to feel relief, even elation: SHIT AIN'T AS BAD. the liberal secular humanist project is in my crosshairs, basically. I remember feeling elated wails rocketing up from 16th street striking my last lone un-jaded nerve the night Obama won. but obama never closed gitmo. It's hardly worth mentioning that *zeitoun* wants to testify to the redemption of humanity. the book is a collective project, with a rigid corporate hierarchy: instead of a dozen names on the cover, there's one, dave's. for a time I was a little confused and thought "zeitoun"ќ was a place and the person paddling the boat was dave eggers. *zeitoun* came out the same year as that *wild things* screen adaptation and novel adapted from the screenplay adapted from the original Maurice sendak children's book"Уmaybe it's max. but is max is paddling away from problems, abdulrahman toward them? whose problems are they? abdulrahman's family is a problem to him, at least his actions after the events of the book would suggest that. global consciousness can never be innocent under neoliberalism. That preoccupation with what's external to the mcsweeney's class is necessary: telling the stories of the incarcerated, palestinians, migrant workers, etc. but also voice of witness seems to be reaching for nearly every other social issue except ones involving either san Francisco politics or gentrification. Why? That one time back in the day, eggers' talking purse had a lot to say about all "the crazy and provocative things"ќ that happen in san Francisco. "еАes muy crazy, no? еАes muy provocative, no?"ќ, diversifies the clutch, commenting on a party gay city hall powerbroker jack davis threw in 1997 that one presumes got a little too outrМ©. Of all the sketchy shit that jack davis does, some tame onstage consensual bloodplay is what gets you? One notices eggers' normative straight bro trajectory since now to the present. I'm annoyed that I had to consult a bunch of other material just to comprehend what eggers is actually attempting in *zeitoun*. Voice of witness' mission is to "advance human rights,"ќ yet the eggers establishment has ignored the disastrous slow burn right in its own backyard of which United Nations Special Rapporteur Leilani Farha wrote a report about in September 2018. The pirate store is right next to the dropbox soccer field. actually, I'm about to try to watch the Emma watson snoozefest *the circle* again and I don't know if anyone wrote a snarky short piece the bay area housing crisis on mcsweeney's. I do know about chas gillespie's "Every Nimby's Speech at a Public Hearing"ќ published last june, next to a little note that says that it's the 14th most read article on the site. Not gonna read it. I also know about Homa Mojtabai's "I Will Do Anything to End Homelessness Except Build More Homes"ќ from May before last which I will also not read. See? I'm learning. Reading eggers has only confirmed the breathtaking accuracy of my instincts. We are absolute cultural adversaries. He's actively trying to kill me. REALLY QUICKLY ON YIMBYS: more isn't always the answer: capitalism currently produces more food than at any point in human history and yet people still go hungry, starve, die, etc.: social redistribution? Like maybe let's redistribute all the techies out of SF so all my friends can move back because there already is enough housing there's just too many rich people and companies buying up properties and letting them sit empty lol. *zeitoun*, now the subject of many a high school book report, is one of the few nonfiction novelizations of hurricane katrina. Academic curricula reflect the apparent consensus that it is better to learn about the US South from *zeitoun* than from mark twain: it's the opposite. *zeitoun* is the worse of those two choices. If you want to learn about arab people, read said. eggers crafts a south where black people don't seem to show up until page 257. when *zeitoun* was published, san francisco was already into the second mayoral term of newsom: of which it's hard to miss the neoliberal valence of newsom's appropriation of the green party slogan "think globally, act locally"ќ; "act locally"ќ is the name of gavin's re-election political action committee. We fell under 3% during Newsom's watch. newsom was thinking about becoming governor since he was marina district supervisor. Eggers sings the aesthetics of a long neoliberal hex for cultural disappearance, of which blackness is one deeply intentional target. It's the aesthetics of Newsom's care not cash policy. Of a clutch's snarky revenge on san franciscan antinormativity. right when you're just getting ready to think about the aftermath of who was disproportionately impacted by katrina you change the subject to institutionalized islamophobic detention, and effectively usurp the focus on those disproportionately impacted by profiling, policing and incarceration. Blacks and muslims both lose since the intersection is prevented from being a legitimate opportunity for coalition; *zeitoun* is stylized as a highly-personal bildung, rather than using Katrina and the experiences of abdulrahman to imagine a black and arab anticolonial coalition. When we hit camp greyhound, I start thinking that the author's using *zeitoun* to gradually, perhaps eggers thinks slyly, dawn upon the black genocide aspect of the whole situation. abdulrahman and todd gambino are placed in a gitmo-style cage on parking lot asphalt out back next to a thundering locomotive repurposed to power the improvised military prison. broadening a view to institutionalized violence, make no mistake that this moment is also about being black (back to this in a minute) and locked up with one's landlord after a natural disaster. this moment would construct a provisional incarcerated enemy combatant class coalition as it flattens the experiences of those who could have fled katrina with those "good tenants"ќ who remained because of insufficient resources. Okay, back to "being black"ќ"УI have to admit that I wrote that thinking that Todd Gambino is black. It is distracting (to put it mildly) that in eggers' persistent literary strategy of black dislocation that Todd is under-described although his behavior is coded as black in *zeitoun* according to the way outrage over Katrina is conventionally racialized: from his expressive vocal indignance and eye rolls (pg. 222) to the biographical detail eggers allows when abdulrahman repeatedly describes him as a good tenant (pg. 116, 148): a mechanic who works at an airport delivering lost luggage (!!!). (Why did I read that as a way eggers might use to cautiously suggest he was black? Does todd wear army jackets? (Do we wear army jackets like that, anyway?)) Of abdulrahman's three co-detainees nabbed at the Claiborne house there's fellow Syrian Nasser who had his $10k life saving cash in a douffle bag. Ronnie is immediately identified as white, If todd isn't black it proves my point about depriving the blackness of Katrina from the eggers' oeuvre (why?); if he is then the juxtaposition with muslim identity assists the race relations project of managing a enemy combatant incarcerated class which mutes katrina's black impact...
janewhitehurst's review
5.0
I always enjoy Dave Egger's writing and Zeitoun is no exception to the rule. Telling the story of a Syrian-born man, his wife Kathy, and their 4 children before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina hit their home of New Orleans, the non-fiction book reads like a novel. I was captivated by the narrative and found I couldn't put it down. I had to know what happens to Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his family. When the storm strikes, Kathy and the kids evacuate. Since they own a business and several rental properties, Zeitoun decides to stay behind to take care of it all. The narrative follows what happens when the levees break and chaos descends on the city of New Orleans. It also shows the bizarre, militaristic government response to the disaster and shines a light on an element of the history that I hadn't known. Excellent.
elizabethmcspencer's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.5
somanybookstoread's review
5.0
If Dave Eggers wrote "a heartbreaking work of staggering genius", THIS is it...not his ego-driven memoir by that title. Seriously, I wasn't an Eggers fan after reading that highly acclaimed work because it stunk of everything that bad memoirs stink of. But this is a brilliant little book and there really is no Eggers on the page other than solidly crafted journalistic writing that is interesting, provocative and tells an important story. I'm very impressed! Eggers proves he can write about something other than himself -- and well. I was also very happy to read that the author's proceeds from the book go entirely to charities to help New Orleans continue to recover from Katrina.
codyisreading's review
4.0
A sombre and harrowing account of one man's experiences in post-Katrina New Orleans.
When Abdulrahman Zeitoun's family decides to evacuate New Orleans in advance of Hurricane Katrina making landfall, he decides to stay. The son of a fisherman and brother of a world renown Syrian swimmer, Zeitoun feels confident he can ride out the storm.
And for a few days after the hurricane strikes, things aren't so bad. Zeitoun paddles around neighborhoods in his canoe, offering assistance and food to anyone he comes across.
Then the levees break, and so does all hell.
In the course of a week, Zeitoun is detained by authorities in a makeshift prison with no way to contact the outside world. Suspected of terrorism and left to languish, Zeitoun experiences kindness and cruelty in equal measure.
It's easy to armchair quarterback FEMA's response to Katrina. I'd say Eggers does a fairly decent job of not pointing fingers or laying the blame in hindsight. However, what struck me most about the government's disaster response was where its priorities were.
A makeshift jail was constructed in under two days, and yet it took over a week for relief efforts to reach areas of New Orleans. Law enforcement from out of state was flown in quicker than the Red Cross. And that's not to minimize the chaos that occurs in the aftermath of a natural disaster; you'll have people that definitely take advantage of the situation for personal gain. But with reports of theft, rape, and assault in the Superdome (ostensibly set up to be an area of aid), Eggers notes that authorities were prioritizing people they could easily nab. Helicopters were shot down, and yet police detained a septuagenarian woman on the suspicion of looting merely because she had sandwiches she'd packed for herself prior to the storm.
I can understand the plight of law enforcement officers. Many were flown in from out-of-state and only given horror stories about what to expect. That would naturally put anyone on edge. But it was utterly shocking how quickly (and easily) due process was suspended. Courts were non-existent. People disappeared behind institutional red-tape with little care given to rectifying wrongs.
Even something as simple as recovering Zeitoun's wallet from his detention center required an act of extreme humanity. His wallet was returned, but his cash and credit cards were gone (showing that even the order-keepers were not immune to illegality).
Zeitoun was heartbreaking at times and uplifting in others. Definitely worth the read for one person's account of what it was like to live through one of the darkest times in our government's recent history.
When Abdulrahman Zeitoun's family decides to evacuate New Orleans in advance of Hurricane Katrina making landfall, he decides to stay. The son of a fisherman and brother of a world renown Syrian swimmer, Zeitoun feels confident he can ride out the storm.
And for a few days after the hurricane strikes, things aren't so bad. Zeitoun paddles around neighborhoods in his canoe, offering assistance and food to anyone he comes across.
Then the levees break, and so does all hell.
In the course of a week, Zeitoun is detained by authorities in a makeshift prison with no way to contact the outside world. Suspected of terrorism and left to languish, Zeitoun experiences kindness and cruelty in equal measure.
It's easy to armchair quarterback FEMA's response to Katrina. I'd say Eggers does a fairly decent job of not pointing fingers or laying the blame in hindsight. However, what struck me most about the government's disaster response was where its priorities were.
A makeshift jail was constructed in under two days, and yet it took over a week for relief efforts to reach areas of New Orleans. Law enforcement from out of state was flown in quicker than the Red Cross. And that's not to minimize the chaos that occurs in the aftermath of a natural disaster; you'll have people that definitely take advantage of the situation for personal gain. But with reports of theft, rape, and assault in the Superdome (ostensibly set up to be an area of aid), Eggers notes that authorities were prioritizing people they could easily nab. Helicopters were shot down, and yet police detained a septuagenarian woman on the suspicion of looting merely because she had sandwiches she'd packed for herself prior to the storm.
I can understand the plight of law enforcement officers. Many were flown in from out-of-state and only given horror stories about what to expect. That would naturally put anyone on edge. But it was utterly shocking how quickly (and easily) due process was suspended. Courts were non-existent. People disappeared behind institutional red-tape with little care given to rectifying wrongs.
Even something as simple as recovering Zeitoun's wallet from his detention center required an act of extreme humanity. His wallet was returned, but his cash and credit cards were gone (showing that even the order-keepers were not immune to illegality).
Zeitoun was heartbreaking at times and uplifting in others. Definitely worth the read for one person's account of what it was like to live through one of the darkest times in our government's recent history.
shesnotthere's review
5.0
This is a heartbreaking account of one family's experiences before, during & after Hurricane Katrina. I read Zeitoun after visiting the Hurricane Katrina exhibit in New Orleans and it hit just as hard reading about the chaos as hearing the accounts at the museum. I've never read Dave Eggers, but I think this was a solid, well researched book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in this sad period of American history.
bookysue's review
4.0
It's still shocking to me that something like this could happen in the United States - that American citizens could be treated the way Zeitoun and his friends were treated; that so many people could perish without help when it should have been so easy to save them.
And the dogs. As soon as there were dogs in the story, I was like shiiit.
And I was still wondering at the end - what about their family dog? Did they just leave it in Baton Rouge permanently? Come on, Eggers! Tie up the loose ends!
But the thing I really didn't understand was how these people could leave their dogs in crates in their houses when they evacuated. Even if they were planning to be gone for only a day or two, that's complete insanity. I was so pissed when he described finding the neighbor dogs' dead bodies, still at the window waiting for him. ARGHHHH DAMNIT. I dunno...I would take my cats and dog with me when I left, even if it meant living in a car full to the brim with cat poop for six months. Cuz, you know, come on.
Anyway, I just can't imagine all the things these people saw and went through after the levees broke, and it really is heartbreaking and unbelievable.
I was glad to learn that the author's proceeds from the book went toward rebuilding New Orleans and other worthwhile causes. This was just such a different style for Eggers (at least compared to A Heartbreaking Work)...I really enjoyed it, despite all the horrors described within.
And the dogs. As soon as there were dogs in the story, I was like shiiit.
And I was still wondering at the end - what about their family dog? Did they just leave it in Baton Rouge permanently? Come on, Eggers! Tie up the loose ends!
But the thing I really didn't understand was how these people could leave their dogs in crates in their houses when they evacuated. Even if they were planning to be gone for only a day or two, that's complete insanity. I was so pissed when he described finding the neighbor dogs' dead bodies, still at the window waiting for him. ARGHHHH DAMNIT. I dunno...I would take my cats and dog with me when I left, even if it meant living in a car full to the brim with cat poop for six months. Cuz, you know, come on.
Anyway, I just can't imagine all the things these people saw and went through after the levees broke, and it really is heartbreaking and unbelievable.
I was glad to learn that the author's proceeds from the book went toward rebuilding New Orleans and other worthwhile causes. This was just such a different style for Eggers (at least compared to A Heartbreaking Work)...I really enjoyed it, despite all the horrors described within.