Leave the World Behind: A Novel

Rumaan Alam

Oct 2020 · Sold by HarperCollins

About this ebook

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? 

Ratings and reviews

Tearing themselves away from their hectic but privileged lives in New York, a family of four has discovered family vacation nirvana in an isolated house they rented from AirBnB. Just as they are settling in, however, the property owners show up unexpectedly. The older couple says they came back after fleeing from an unknown catastrophe and they are seeking refuge. It is not immediately clear, however, if the story they are relating is true or if their arrival is motivated by a darker purpose. From there, the novel takes a sharp turn toward the uncanny. Rumaan Alam’s novel, Leave the World Behind, has been dubbed a critical darling since its release. Dipping into the suspense/horror genre, it tackles issues of race and class—clearly benefiting from the popularity of Jordan Peele’s films “Get Out, “Us,” “Lovecraft Country,” and the reboot of the “Twilight Zone.” Alam also addresses the timely issue of insufficient crisis management on a micro-level. The author creates a pressure cooker system in which people are forced to rely upon each other while under duress. Each character has a unique reaction to the unknown threat as they decide their imminent course of action. They debate whether comfort and safety should be sacrificed for action and answers, if preservation of family should be paramount (and what constitutes a “family” under extreme conditions), and how much trust and faith should be placed in strangers. The nebulous sequence of events adds to the ambience of creeping dread as the characters alternate between building connection and turning on each other. Modern references make the story especially germane to today’s headlines, as we have been forced to prepare for an extended siege against an invisible enemy. Alam does not provide a clean conclusion to the book—the reader is left with a sense of unresolved unease. Leave the World Behind has clearly touched a nerve in the readers of 2020, and it has served as part of our conversation about basic survival instincts and the weaknesses/strengths we display when we are truly tested. Thanks to the author, ECCO (HarperCollins) and Edelweiss for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an impartial review.

Too much mindless detail about nothing. No conclusion, no answers, just ended with a feeling of wasted time spent reading it.

Thought charater development lacking and subject matter like watching a train wreck. Disturbing to read but I nevertheless read it all.

About the author

Rumaan Alam is the author of the novels Rich and Pretty, That Kind of Mother, and the instant New York Times bestseller Leave the World Behind. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Bookforum, and the New Republic, where he is a contributing editor. He studied writing at Oberlin College and lives in New York with his family.