Halfway there! And I’m doing better than it might appear in that I’m in the middle of another 7 books and just have to decide what the final 3 will be. This was a sobering but satisfying pair of novels in which race and class play a part but the characters are ultimately helpless in the face of disasters and violence. Both: 
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam (2020)
The title heralds a perfect holiday read, right? A New York City couple, Amanda and Clay, have rented a secluded vacation home in Long Island with their teenagers, Archie and Rose, and plan on a week of great beach weather and mild hedonism: food, drink, secret cigarettes, a hot tub, maybe some sex. But late on the first night there’s a knock on the door from the owners, sixtysomething Black couple Ruth and G. H. Something is going on; although the house still has power, all phone and Internet services have gone down. Rather than return to a potentially chaotic city, the older couple set course for their country retreat to hunker down. George is in finance and believes money solves everything, so he offers Amanda and Clay $1000 cash for the inconvenience of having their holiday interrupted.
From an amassing herd of deer to Archie’s sudden mystery illness, everything quickly turns odd. Glimpses of what’s happening in the wider world are surrounded by a menacing haziness, but the events seem to embody modern anxieties about being cut off from information and wondering who to trust. Given the blurbs and initial foreshadowing, I expected racial tension to be a main driver of an incendiary household climax. Instead, the threat is external and largely unexplained, and the couples are forced to rely on each other as tribalism sets in. (It’s uncanny that this was written before Covid, published during.)
This was a book club read and one of the most divisive I can remember. I was among the few who thought it gripping, intriguing, and even genuinely frightening. Others found the characters unlikable, the plot implausible or silly, and the writing heavy-handed. Alam is definitely poking fun at privileged bougie families. He draws attention to the author as puppet-master, inserting shrewd hints of what is occurring elsewhere or will soon befall certain characters. Some passages skirt pomposity with their anaphora and rhetorical questioning. Alliteration, repetition, and stark pronouncements make the prose almost baroque in places. Alam’s style is theatrical, even arch, but it suits the premonitory tone. I admired how he constantly upends genre expectations, moving from literary fiction to domestic drama to dystopia to magic realism to horror. The stuff of nightmares – being naked in front of strangers, one’s teeth falling out – becomes real, or at least real in the world of the book. The reminder is that we are never as in control as we think we are; always, disasters are unfolding. What will we do, and who will we be, as the inevitable unfolds?
You demanded answers, but the universe refused. Comfort and safety were just an illusion. Money meant nothing. All that meant anything was this—people, in the same place, together. This was what was left to them.
Absorbing, timely, controversial: read it! (Free from a neighbour)
Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones (2002)
Jones’s debut novel is about the Atlanta Child Murders, a real-life serial killer spree that targeted 29 African American children between 1979 and 1982. (Two of the victims attended her elementary school.) Rather than addressing the gruesome reality, however, she takes a sideways look by considering the effect that fear has on students whose classmates start disappearing. Three sections rather like linked novellas take on the perspective of three different Oglethorpe Elementary fifth graders: LaTasha Baxter, Rodney Green, and Octavia Harrison. The POV moves from third to second to first person, a creative writing experiment that succeeds at pulling readers closer in. The AAVE-inflected dialogue and interactions feel genuine in each, and I liked the playful addition of “Tayari Jones” as a fringe character.
Even as their school is making news headlines, the children’s concerns are perennial adolescent ones: how to avoid bullying, who to sit with at lunch, how to be friendly yet not falsely encourage members of the opposite sex. And at home, all three struggle with an absent or overbearing father. At age 11, these kids are just starting to realize that their parents aren’t perfect and might not be able to keep them safe. I especially warmed to Octavia’s voice, even as her story made my heart ache: “cussing at myself for being too stupid to see that nothing lasts. That people get away from you like a handful of sweet smoke.” I preferred this offbeat, tender coming-of-age novel to Silver Sparrow and would place it on a par with An American Marriage. (Birthday gift from my wish list)
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
Go Rebecca!
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I’ve still got a LOT of reading to do this month…
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I might put the Jones book on my list, although I wasn’t thrilled by An American Marriage.
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Probably not essential reading for you, then, unless the subject matter really appeals.
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Not too much. I am not into sports at all.
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Oops! I got my comments mixed up. This last one was for a sports book that I just read the review of.
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No worries! I’m not a sports person either 😉
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I’ve not read Leave the World Behind but did read Entitlement earlier in the year. I really liked the premise but couldn’t get on with his style which puts me off LTWB, I’m afraid.
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What’s funny is that we have a book club member who reminds me (and Chris) very much of you in height, manner, reading taste — everything! And she loathed Leave the World Behind. I can see why his work didn’t suit your usual taste for a more pared-back style. I don’t think I’ll read another of his books.
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That’s a bit unnerving! I don’t think I will, either.
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What a good review! I may now read this.
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Thanks! Which one draws you in particular?
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I remember reading Tayari Jones willingly enough (An American Marriage) without being wowed by it. I’ll have to try the Rumaan Alam, as I can’t tell what side of the fence I’d be on.
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Somehow I think you’d be in the ‘hate it’ camp…
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Hmm. I have a feeling you’re right …
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Leave the World Behind scared me too much – I quit reading halfway through! No thank you! Dystopian stuff in general is too much for me.
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We read Station Eleven for book club back in November and I was surprised that some of the people who loved that hated this. I guess it was a tone/style thing.
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I found Station Eleven to be much less frightening than the Alam. Mandel kept the very scary stuff mostly off the page.
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Leave the World Behind sounds fantastic! I enjoyed Leaving Atlanta too but have yet to read any more of Jones work.
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I think it could be right up your street.
An American Marriage was good, a solid Women’s Prize winner.
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Leaving Atlanta is my favourite Jones! I’m so glad you enjoyed it too and I hope it eventually gets a UK publication. And yes, everyone seems to disagree about the Alam – I really can’t decide if I’d like it or not.
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Should I bother with The Untelling? And when is she going to publish another book already?!
I’m not sure, but I have a feeling you’d find it too heavy-handed.
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I enjoyed The Untelling more than Silver Sparrow but less than Leaving Atlanta or An American Marriage. So… yes?
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Hi Rebecca
We liked ‘Leave the World Behind’. It’s scary in a thrilling way. Unfortunately the style is far from elegant.
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I like all sorts of writing styles. This was different for sure and I probably won’t read another of his books.
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You’re doing great with your challenge and these both sound very appealing to me!
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Thanks! I think you could love both.
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Ooh, good going! I am on a maybe I will / maybe I won’t thing with my 20 at the moment, caused by having to read too many OTHER books! Leave the World Behind always made me feel a bit too freaked out to pick it up; I’m glad Leaving Atlanta is about the classmates rather than the murders, feels like an interesting corollary to the books published here about Northern kids at the time of the Moors Murders.
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Yes, somehow I don’t think the Alam is for you. His average ratings on Goodreads are alarmingly low!
One of my recent Book Serendipity moments was about that, in fact: the memoir The Stirrings by Catherine Taylor covers the time when the Yorkshire Ripper was at large, so she wasn’t allowed to walk home alone from school, like one of the characters in Leaving Atlanta.
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[…] I thought it was a little aimless, especially in its subplots, and it suffered in comparison with Leave the World Behind, which has quite a similar setup but a more intriguing cosmic/dystopian direction. (Secondhand – […]
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