New Yorkers Amanda and Clay take their two children, Archie and Rose, away from the city to an AirBnB advertised as “The Ultimate Escape” in a remote area of Long Island. The novel explores contemporary conceptions of domestic life by bringing together a group of unlikely houseguests. Honestly, I wondered how a book that felt like one continuous “ahhhh” with no “choo!” could be considered one of this year’s best novels. “Shuggie Bain,” another finalist for the award, won the Booker Prize the very next day, which made me wonder how books are chosen for these honors.
“Leave the World Behind” made the shortlist for this year’s National Book Award, but I wasn’t surprised when it didn’t win. It’s a frustrating feeling, and one that readers of Rumaan Alam’s third novel, “Leave The World Behind,” will know well. Soon to be a major global Netflix adaptation starring Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts.Have you ever stepped outside at the start of spring to see new leaves budding and flowers blooming, and felt your sinuses start to seize up with the hint of a sneeze as you breathe in the pollen? Sometimes the sneeze keeps building - you raise a hand to your face and mumble “ahhh, ahhhh,” and sometimes the “choo!” never comes. Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshaped in moments of crisis - and how the most terrifying situations are never far from reality. Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple - and vice versa? What has happened back in New York? Is the holiday home, isolated from civilisation, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one another?Īn impossibly compelling literary thriller about the world we live in now, Rumaan Alam's novel is keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race and class. These strangers say that a sudden power outage has swept the city, and - with nowhere else to turn - they have come to the country in search of shelter.īut with the TV and internet down, and no phone service, the facts are unknowable. H., an older couple who claim to own the home, have arrived there in a panic. But with a late-night knock on the door, the spell is broken.
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction.Ī magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong.Īmanda and Clay head to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a holiday: 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.
Picked as a book of the autumn by Vogue, Time, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, Vulture, Newsweek, NY Observer, Refinery29, New York Post, PopSugar and LA Mag. Bloomsbury presents Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, read by Marin Ireland.
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