Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam

This is a kinder gentler disaster story than The Road, but while less bleak and creepy, the story is no less sobering. Amanda and Clay take their two teenage children away to a remote Long Island holiday house where they are able to play at ownership of a house that they cannot afford in real life. It is the allure that Airbnb allows us all to play at for a weekend or so at a time. They are comfortable, in love, delighted by their children and enjoying themselves until one night, when there’s a knock on the door. A black couple – GH (George) Washington and his wife, Ruth, ask to come in. They are the owners of the house, even though Amanda thinks to herself that it didn’t seem “like the sort of house where black people lived”. There are strong echoes of Jordan Peele’s Get Out as the reader is asked to join Amanda and Clay in ascertaining how threatening this couple are. So while we contemplate what the end-of-the-world event has just occurred, we are also grappling with their, and also our, preconceived ideas about race, class, and how to form alliances.