The visitors are George and Ruth, and they own the place. Its characters ask questions eerily similar to the ones we ask now: Why is it so hot? Why is it so quiet? Where did the birds go? The answers will change everything. Rumaan Alam’s “ Leave the World Behind” is the story of Normal being stressed, cracked, then demolished forever. It’s also the beginning of one of the saddest and most gripping books you will ever read. Kids were always needing a Band-Aid, pink skin splitting like summer fruit.” It sounds normal, even banal, and it is. As they drive out past the Long Island suburbs - lower class, working class, middle-middle class, then the nether reaches of the rich - the narrator of their story documents with archaeological precision the litter on the floor of Clay’s car, the accumulated detritus of the age of convenience: oats from granola bars, a subscription insert from the New Yorker, “a twisted tissue, ossified with snot, that wisp of white plastic peeled from the back of a Band-Aid who knew when. Married 16 years, Clay and Amanda are hyper-vigilant New Yorkers, acutely aware of the class signs - clothes, cars, schools, neighborhoods - that help them navigate an impossibly complex city. Archie, 15, is in the full flush of adolescence, and Rose, 13, is not quite there yet, still a young girl in her parents’ minds. Amanda is an account director at a marketing firm.

If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.Ĭlay and Amanda and Archie and Rose are on vacation, escaping August in Brooklyn for a retreat, found on the Internet, that promises they will “leave the world behind.” Clay is a professor at City College.

Alam rumaan