Zeitoun, Dave Eggers

I first discovered Dave Eggers when I bought ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius’ purely on the strength of the great title. At once sad, funny and beautiful, this is a memoir of his life around the age of 21 when both of his parents died of cancer and he had to bring up his 8 year-old brother, Christopher. It was a stunning debut and Anna and I have been hooked on his work ever since.
Zeitoun, his latest work of non-fiction, tells the story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian-born builder and decorator who chose to stay in his home in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. A big mistake, as it turned out, but not for the reasons you might imagine.
His wife and four children went to stay with friends in Arizona and Zeitoun stayed behind to take care of their home, some rental properties they own, and to try and help out wherever he could. He travelled the city in a secondhand canoe, discovering people trapped in their homes as he silently slipped along, that the troops in powerboats might never have heard. He shared what supplies he had with friends and strangers alike. The reward for his efforts was arrest, without charge, for a crime he didn’t commit and a 3-week stay in a temporary jail without decent food or a bed to sleep on. Probably the greatest injustice was the daily denial of a phone call to his wife to let her know where he was. What starts off as a hero's tale of the good work done in the aftermath of the storm turns into a nightmare at the hands of an incompetent government and some nasty individuals.
It’s one of those books, like ‘The Shock Doctrine’ by Naomi Klein, which makes you feel so angry and so helpless at the same time. It’s a compelling read though and I think you’d rather know about these things than not.