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A review by savaging
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
3.0
Zietoun is great journalism: an intense personal story with broad policy implications, told carefully and thoroughly and with the full consensus and participation of the protagonists. I've heard explanations for why it was a bad idea to militarize post-Katrina New Orleans, but I'm a social animal, and the description of the horrors that happen to a guy with a name in a canoe does something for me.
But the book doesn't function as a work of art. The protagonists don't cast a shadow. They are heroes. They are up against the villains. This is probably a natural consequence of a writing process that is so closely tied to the approval of the Zeitoun family. Maybe you can't make art about someone you can't betray. Comparisons are drawn between this book and [b:The Executioner's Song|12468|The Executioner's Song|Norman Mailer|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1325755176s/12468.jpg|838965], with the explanation that Eggers is more "heartfelt" and "humanist" than Mailer, but Mailer's less-loveable characters have development at least, and an internal life. The admirable Zeitouns are living at the surface.
This is why it's such a scandal to discover that since the book was published, the protagonists have divorced and Kathy has accused Zeitoun of trying to kill her. Such news is indigestible for the shadowless heroes in the book.
Is it only horrible injustice if it happens to good, 'decent' people?
Having read Eggers at his cleverest, I can admire that he puts aside his wordplay to tell a story as plainly as possible, in words that fit with the characters themselves. Yes, I can admire this. And then I hope the next thing I read has some more musicality to it, because the lines hit me flat like newsprint or gospel tracts.
But the book doesn't function as a work of art. The protagonists don't cast a shadow. They are heroes. They are up against the villains. This is probably a natural consequence of a writing process that is so closely tied to the approval of the Zeitoun family. Maybe you can't make art about someone you can't betray. Comparisons are drawn between this book and [b:The Executioner's Song|12468|The Executioner's Song|Norman Mailer|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1325755176s/12468.jpg|838965], with the explanation that Eggers is more "heartfelt" and "humanist" than Mailer, but Mailer's less-loveable characters have development at least, and an internal life. The admirable Zeitouns are living at the surface.
This is why it's such a scandal to discover that since the book was published, the protagonists have divorced and Kathy has accused Zeitoun of trying to kill her. Such news is indigestible for the shadowless heroes in the book.
Is it only horrible injustice if it happens to good, 'decent' people?
Having read Eggers at his cleverest, I can admire that he puts aside his wordplay to tell a story as plainly as possible, in words that fit with the characters themselves. Yes, I can admire this. And then I hope the next thing I read has some more musicality to it, because the lines hit me flat like newsprint or gospel tracts.