Award-winning author Dave Eggers tells the story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a successful Syrian-born contractor who decides to stay in New Orleans and protect his property while his family flees Katrina. After the levees break, he uses a small canoe to rescue people, before being arrested by an armed squad and accused of being a member of al-Qaeda. Drawn from extensive interviews and research, Eggers provides the reader with a wonderfully written narrative exploring the intersection of the badly managed Katrina and the disastrous "War on Terror".

"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." -Timothy Egan, the New York Times Book Review