Leave the World Behind Unsettling and Dynamic

Leave the World Behind (2020)

By Rumaan Alam

Ecco Press, 256 pages.

★★★★★

 

If something undefined but ominous occurred, where would you wish to be? Most people would probably say “home,” and in a roundabout way that’s what Leave the World Behind is about.

 

The novel begins innocently, if annoyingly. We meet a white family headed by Amanda, an advertising maven, and Clay, an English and media studies professor at City University of New York. They have two children, lank 16-year-old Archie and spoiled, slightly chubby Rose, who is 13. Like many bourgeois Brooklynites, the family is comfortable, but they focus more on what they don’t have. This is especially true of Amanda who, to be charitable, is hard to stomach.

 

Summer vacation is an Airbnb rental in the Hamptons (Long Island) that underscores that they are not among the super elites. The sprawling home is tucked into a wooded glade near the ocean and sports granite counters, top-quality furnishings, a hot tub, and a swimming pool. Amanda spends a small fortune on more fancy food than can possibly be consumed in a week, while simultaneously feeling self-important, put upon, and covetous.

 

The family is settling in and enjoying themselves, though odd things startle them. A huge herd of deer appears at the edge of the forest, the sky crackles, and a loud boom is heard. Even worse, their devices stopped working. They are the sort who are so tied to them that they can’t find their way into the town five miles away without GPS.

 

It’s about to get worse. In the middle of the night, there’s a knock at the door and a frazzled and terrified elderly black couple stands outside. They introduce themselves as a George and Ruth Washington, who own the home. As George explains, something weird is happening and they fled New York because they felt a deep impulse to be in their country home rather than in their Park Avenue apartment. George opens his wallet and offers $1000 cash if they can just stay in the house as well.

 

If you imagine this is a race drama you are correct, but only a few yards down the country lane. As it transpires, something might be seriously wrong, but to quote an old Buffalo Springfield song, what it is ain’t exactly clear. There is a disconcerting hum in the air, more booms, and more unnatural phenomena occur. Animals stir, but people are mostly ensconced in their homes or absent.

 

Imagine being cooped up with strangers. Imagine not having the faintest idea what’s going on. There is no Internet, no TV, no radio, and no newspapers. Electricity still works, but New York City is rumored to be completely dark. Is it a hurricane? A blackout? An attack? The Rapture? Concrete and glass crack. Terror mounts, but at what can it be focused? What if everything you think matters–careers, investments, possessions, money – suddenly mean nothing? How to explain unusual sicknesses – Archie vomits, several of his teeth fall out, and then he feels fine – or things that shouldn’t be, like a flock of flamingos on a Long Island lawn? Where would you turn if, “You demanded answers, but the universe refused?” Alam writes, “Some people started to realize that they had a naïve belief in the system. Some people tried to maintain that system. Some people were vindicated that they had stockpiled guns and those filter straws that made water safe to drink.” Which one is you and how would you reconcile it when, “However much happened, so much more would happen?”

 

Leave the World Behind is the spellbinding and unsettling novel that is worthy of its National Book Award nomination. Think of it as a cross between Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and On the Beach. When things seem to be falling apart, Ruth understands “that … everything [is] held together by tacit agreement that it would…. There was no real structure to prevent chaos, there was only a collective faith in order.” Is her faith misplaced? This page turner will leave you trembling. It would be wrong of me to say if you should be!

 

Rob Weir