Leave the World Behind
A Novel
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3.4 • 1.5K Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Now a Netflix film starring Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha'la, Farrah Mackenzie, Charlie Evans and Kevin Bacon. Written for the Screen and Directed by Sam Esmail. Executive Producers Barack and Michelle Obama, Tonia Davis, Daniel M. Stillman, Nick Krishnamurthy, Rumaan Alam
A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!
Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award in Fiction
One of Barack Obama's Summer Reads
A Best Book of the Year From: The Washington Post * Time * NPR * Elle * Esquire * Kirkus * Library Journal * The Chicago Public Library * The New York Public Library * BookPage * The Globe and Mail * EW.com * The LA Times * USA Today * InStyle * The New Yorker * AARP * Publisher's Lunch * LitHub * Book Marks * Electric Literature * Brooklyn Based * The Boston Globe
A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong.
From the bestselling author of Rich and Pretty comes a suspenseful and provocative novel keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race, and class. Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshaped—and unexpected new ones are forged—in moments of crisis.
Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they’ve rented for the week. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G. H. are an older couple—it’s their house, and they’ve arrived in a panic. They bring the news that a sudden blackout has swept the city. But in this rural area—with the TV and internet now down, and no cell phone service—it’s hard to know what to believe.
Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple—and vice versa? What happened back in New York? Is the vacation home, isolated from civilization, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one other?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This terrifying novel is impossible to put down, especially on a chilly night. Clay and Amanda take their family to a luxe vacation home in the Hamptons, expecting rest and relaxation. But when another couple arrives to claim their home, things turn ominous as it becomes clear that something terrible is happening in the outside world. Novelist Rumaan Alam (That Kind of Mother) has never done this kind of dystopian psychological horror before, but the dark turn suits him. He matches his tense plot with a wonderfully disorienting writing style. Alam’s unnamed omniscient narrator constantly breaks the fourth wall, addressing us directly with snarky asides about the characters’ inner thoughts, whether it’s Clay’s disgust around his kids’ fast-food-induced flatulence or Amanda’s casual racism. The potentially apocalyptic events unfolding a few miles away in Manhattan add to the sense of dread. Leave the World Behind is a page-turning, spine-chilling, and thought-provoking read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Alam's spectacular and ominous latest (after That Kind of Mother), a family's idyllic summer retreat coincides with global catastrophe. Amanda and Clay, married white Brooklynites with two children, rent a secluded house in the Hamptons for a summer vacation. Their "illusion of ownership" is shattered when the house's proprietors, G.H. and Ruth, an African American couple in their 60s, show up unannounced from New York City. Widespread blackouts have hit the East Coast, and G.H. and Ruth are seeking refuge in the beach house they've rented out. The returned owners are greeted with polite suspicion and simmering resentment: "It was torture, a home invasion without rape or guns," thinks Amanda. G.H. and Ruth, in turn, can't help but wish their renters gone ("G. H.'s familiar old fridge yielded nothing but surprise. He'd not have filled it with such things"). But over a couple days, they form an uneasy collective as a series of strange and increasingly menacing events herald cataclysmic change, from migrating herds of deer to the thunder of military jets roaring overhead. The omniscient narrator occasionally zooms out to provide snapshots of the wider chaotic world that are effective in their brevity. Though information is scarce, the signs of impending collapse ecological and geopolitical have been glaringly visible to the characters all along: "No one could plead ignorance that was not willful." This illuminating social novel offers piercing commentary on race, class and the luxurious mirage of safety, adding up to an all-too-plausible apocalyptic vision.
Customer Reviews
Good read, okay ending
The book kept me enticed the whole way though, finished it in 3 sittings! Wish there was more closure at the end, kinda a let down to end where it did.
Disappointing.
I had high hopes for this book after hearing an excerpt on NPR. The book was a major letdown. Overly flowery in language for no good reason. Read like the “man trying to write a woman” joke. Too much useless, irrelevant description and a lack of character development (beyond the unnecessary sexual aspect). Ending was just frustrating. If you want any kind of a resolution, forget it. It’s like the last few chapters are missing.
Armageddon with useless characters
Annoying characters Sexual references totally gratuitous. Why did these characters do anything they did. The plot line would be interesting if it were not 2020 and it didn’t feel like Armageddon with the pandemic. It was sloppily written and sloppily edited.