We readers, like that vacationing couple, dismiss the signs at first: We're lulled by that pool and hot tub and those burgers on the grill. When, deep into the night, a vacationing couple hears a knock at the door of their remote Airbnb rental in the Hamptons, as a reader you think, "Oh, this is a suspense story." Then, when that couple, who are white, opens the door to a couple outside who are Black and conversational awkwardness ensues, you think, "Oh, this is a comedy of manners about race, a kind of edgy riff on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."īoth impressions are correct: Leave the World Behind simultaneously continues to be a thriller and a deft comedy of manners but, very slowly a different kind of story creeps in and takes over. Rumaan Alam's Leave the World Behind is a slippery and duplicitous marvel of a novel.
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