Rumaan Alam’s new novel Leave the World Behind elegantly captures our age of anxiety and shows how the most terrifying situations are never far from reality.

About the book

Amanda 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.

But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell.

Ruth and GH 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 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 holiday home, isolated from civilisation, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one another?

Suspenseful and provocative, Rumaan Alam’s third novel is 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.

‘Five stars: an exceptional examination of race and class and family and what the world looks like when it’s ending ­ not at all different from the world we are in now.’ – ­ Roxane Gay

‘Leave The World Behind is that rarest of things: a beautifully written, emotionally resonant page-turner. Alam explores complex ideas about privilege and fate with miraculous wit and grace.’ – Jenny Offill, author of Weather

About the author

Rumaan Alam is the author of Rich and Pretty and That Kind of Mother. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Elle, New York Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, The Rumpus, Buzzfeed, and elsewhere. He studied at Oberlin College, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Categories Fiction International

Tags Jonathan Ball Publishers Leave the World Behind New books New releases Rumaan Alam