And while the characters of the novel are geographically removed from whatever is happening, which may have spared their lives, they are forced to directly confront different challenges and dynamics.īefore the Washingtons’ arrival at the house, Leave the World Behind embodies that languid summer space where minutes move like molasses but before you know it it’s happy hour. This, Alam’s third novel, takes place in the early days of this Armageddon-type event’s unfurling. While we figured out what’s going on out there.” tells Amanda and Clay, “We wanted to be in our house. “Something happened” in the city, “a blackout” they think but the scale of it immediately feels far bigger than that - the internet is down everywhere, and before their phones crashed Amanda received a push-alert saying the blackout was affecting the entire East Coast. and Ruth Washington, show up late one night begging pardon but asking to be let in. That illusion is quickly shattered when the home’s rightful owners, G. “hey could pantomime ownership for a week.” They’ve rented a house for a week, the online description of which calls it a place to “leave the world behind.” The vacation affords them, along with the perks of relaxation and togetherness, the opportunity to pretend this luxurious life in this expensive house is their own. The story begins with Amanda and Clay, “middle-class people,” along with their two children Archie and Rose, driving from Brooklyn to the Hamptons for a summer getaway. “Business as usual, the business of being alive.” And even when a calamity unfolds, there are things that still must be attended to, like eating, sleeping, scratching an itch. If we have learned anything in this calamitous, unrelenting year, it is that catastrophe can be slow to unravel and unexpected when it does. Leave the World Behind feels right in sync with 2020. Others, like Clay, Rose’s father, are forced to confront unpleasant truths: “He couldn’t bear admitting what sort of man he was when tested.” Some, like Rose, a 13-year-old girl on vacation with her family, find themselves unexpectedly and innately prepared for hardship they are resilient, even brave. The novel’s six principal characters, all stuck together in a house due to an unknown national crisis, handle these questions in their own ways. What kind of prejudices do you, liberal you, hold quietly in your heart? And 3. THE CHARACTERS IN Rumaan Alam’s ominous new novel, Leave the World Behind, directly grapple with a series of important existential questions: 1.
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