BOOKS

Eggers' New Book Tackles Katrina

Author also has a plan to save newspapers.

Following in a similar vein to his previous book, What Is The What, Dave Eggers' latest, set to come out in early July, will tackle Hurricane Katrina. The non-fiction tale, Zeitoun, will focus on a Muslim family of the same name living in New Orleans during the catastrophe. The father of the family stayed at home through the storm, and then set out to help others in a canoe. Various elements of contemporary life intersect in the story, such as, "the debacle of the government response to Katrina,...(and) widespread Islamophobia," according to Eggers. The author's publishing house, McSweeney's, is also hard at work preparing a single issue of a newspaper that will serve as a model for how to start a new, profitable daily. In the interview with the Rumpus, Eggers expresses optimism for the future of newsprint, saying that we are heading to the point where the Internet and newspapers will "each do what they do best, and coexist peacefully."