And Now I Want a Canoe.

If Dave Eggers isn't yet an entry in Stuff White People Like, he should be. Loving Dave Eggers goes hand in hand with being an upper middle class white kid in your early 20s searching for your one true self. It's right up there with pad thai and ugly sweater parties. So obviously, I've always been a fan. Admittedly, my fandom has more stemmed from stuff Dave Eggers has done that doesn't have to do with his actual writing. I volunteer at 826's Los Angeles branch and I'm incredibly fond of all things McSweeney's, but I found A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius a smidge too navel-gazing for even me and I never felt like What Is the What gelled. Eggers does best using his own voice and I don't think he ever captured his narrator.

All that said, Zeitoun completely won me. If loving Dave Eggers this hard makes me a hipster, dress me in skinny jeans and a fedora and hand me a clove cigarette. I'm in. The sparse prose makes me think of a modern-day Hemingway and the fact that this story is true only makes it more painful and more difficult to put down. He tells the story of Zeitoun, a Syrian immigrant living in New Orleans with his wife, Kathy, and their four children, and how Katrina affected them. Not that we weren't aware of how severely the US government botched the response to Katrina, but to see it so clearly through one man's eyes makes it come home more than any vague news footage ever did. This compounded with the way the National Guard responded to a Muslim makes for a fairly heartbreaking read. Eggers' writing - and Zeitoun and Kathy - never ask for pity. That's not this book's style, nor is it theirs. You will put this book down with both an overwhelming disgust at what can happen when those we put our trust in fail us, but also with an overwhelming faith in humanity - that people can be as mistreated as Kathy and Zeitoun and rise from the ashes and continue with their lives.