Published to wide acclaim in 2009, Dave Egger's nonfiction work, Zeitoun, is a staggering account of one family's experience and trauma stemming from but not limited to Hurricane Katrina. In a style that delves meaningfully into each character's emotional state while providing journalistic context to the situation, Zeitoun follows the life of a Syrian-American man who decides to stay in New Orleans during the hurricane even though his wife and children evacuate.
Zeitoun, a painter and contractor, always choses to stay home during storms in order to watch over his various properties and projects. But this storm is much more than he could have ever imagined. After the levees fail and his...