Haroon Moghul, over at Religion Dispatches, gives flying colors to Dave Eggers’s new novel about a Muslim man who sets off into the flood-waters of Hurricane Katrina in a canoe:
Eggers never stumbles when he introduces, between Zeitoun’s thoughts and fears, verses of Qur’an, episodes from his family history, instances from his childhood. We care about and root on the dry sidelines for the decent man overwhelmed by the skewed civilization around him, more interested in building prisons for its citizens than, say, finding them water, toilets or evacuation options. You will be as afraid as Zeitoun, too, when he’s arrested on brittle pretext and thrown into New Orleans’ own Guantanamo Bay. His family, scattered from Arizona to Syria, comes together to recover him, but cannot patch up so easily.
Read more at Religion Dispatches.