In our ASTU 100 class this week, we read Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. The book follows Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian-American painter and contractor who lived in New Orleans while Hurricane Katrina stuck in 2005. In the Katrina aftermath, the American Government, without any semblance of due process (to say the least), unjustly incarcerated Zeitoun. His wife Kathy then must go through the very worst of the bureaucratic system to free her husband.

Our discussion in class often address the fact the Eggers is presenting bias towards Zeitoun and his family. He paints him a hero, with the perfect wife and family, who fell from grace at the hands of massive mismanagement following Katrina.

After reading the novel, we found out that Zeitoun has been charged with abusing his wife, and is spending time in prison. We also know that Kathy has left Zeitoun due to his newfound violence.

We have also read Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco, which chronicles the UN designated safe area Gorazde during the Bosnian War through the form of graphic journalism. Unlike Eggers, Sacco is always present in his telling of other’s stories. He draws himself into the narratives he retells, and the reader is consistently reminded of his humanness as we see him engaging with the residents of Gorazde doing daily activities (watching TV, sharing a meal etc.).

This is not the case with Zeitoun. Eggers presence is rarely, if ever, felt in the book, and we are told the book is a work of nonfiction. Eggers makes a clear truth claim through an appeal to his usage of fact at the start of the novel, in an attempt to validate the story of Zeitoun and his family. Although the new of Zeitoun’s abuse does not logistically conflict with the novel, Eggers’ narrative relied on Zeitoun’s portrayal as a hero, husband and family man. This new information challenges not the story itself, but rather the narrative painted by Eggers that possibly cause the reader to sympathize with Zeitoun and his extreme and unjust hardship.

Perhaps, if Eggers, like Sacco, had situated himself in the book, the news of Zeitoun’s abuse would be less disruptive to the novel overall. As readers, we often consume information without taking note of the careful construction through which it is presented. In the case of Safe Area Gorazde, Sacco goes to lengths to show where his information is coming from. He is up front with the subjectivity, and how it may possibly affect the stories being told.

The fact that Eggers’ voice is absent from the story is only problematic because his narrative has been challenged by new information he was unaware of. If the reader was more involved in the actual presentation of Zeitoun, and was involved in the development of Eggers positionality in presenting Zeitoun’s story, the portrayal of Zeitoun may have come across as less idealistic, and the news of his abuse could have been taken into consideration as a potential result of his incarceration, rather than contrasting the narrative and the truth claim that Eggers made at the beginning of the novel.