Novelist Dave Eggers tells the true story of Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun who become caught between America’s two biggest policy disasters: the war on terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina. As the hurricane approaches, Kathy evacuates with their four children leaving Abdulrahman  behind to watch over his house-painting business. In the wake of the hurricane he travels the city by canoe, feeding abandoned animals and helping elderly neighbors. And then police officers armed with M-6s arrest him in his home.

Timothy Egan wrote in The New York Times Book Review: “Imagine Charles Dickens, his sentimentality in check but his journalistic eyes wide open, roaming New Orleans after it was buried by Hurricane Katrina. . . . Eggers’ tone is pitch-perfect—suspense blended with just enough information to stoke reader outrage and what is likely to be a typical response: How could this happen in America? . . . It’s the stuff of great narrative nonfiction. . . . Fifty years from now, when people want to know what happened to this once-great city during a shameful episode of our history, they will still be talking about a family named Zeitoun.”