write a paragraph in about 100 words briefly describeing the book ( leave the world behind)
Answers
LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND
By Rumaan Alam
The literary suspense of “Leave the World Behind” hinges on that familiar guilt-tinged longing for a vacation that never ends. Rumaan Alam inhabits the head space of Amanda and Clay, denizens of New York City, parents of a teenage son and adolescent daughter, who slouch toward Long Island for summer vacation — only to discover that life as they know it is over.
There’s an Airbnb, far off the GPS-beaten path, “extraordinary and only $340 a day,” made all the more alluring by its lack of cellphone access. “The Ultimate Escape,” the listing proclaimed before launching into “chummy advertising-speak” to describe the place. Clay and Amanda are sold. They pack up the car (“not so new as to be luxurious or so old as to be bohemian”) and head out of town.
Alam’s two previous novels, “Rich and Pretty” and “That Kind of Mother,” have proved he’s gifted with an acidic wit, one he uses to break down contemporary life at the cellular level. His wry observations about the structured chaos of vacation life might go on indefinitely — but then comes a knock at the door. The owners of the rental house arrive, seeking refuge. Clay and Amanda, not anticipating this intrusion or the particular station of their landlords turned guests — they’re Black and wealthy, how could this be? — castigate themselves for their illiberal reactions. But the real issue is what these newcomers are escaping from: a mysterious blackout in New York City.We flit, omniscient, through this unlikely collection of minds as the slow trickle of news turns bleak. The adults cling to the cabin, their off-the-grid paradise is now a prison. Think Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” if nobody ever got the courage to embark down that titular path. But the children disappear into the encroaching wild — as children on vacation are wont to do — and that wild answers back with alarming ferality.