Leave the World Behind: A Novel

A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award (Fiction) One of Barack Obama's Summer Favorites A Best Book of the Year From: The Washington Post * Time * NPR * Elle * Esquire * Kirkus * Library Journal * The Chicago Public Library * The New York Public Library * BookPage * The Globe and Mail * EW.com * The LA Times * USA Today * InStyle * The New Yorker * AARP * Publisher's Lunch * LitHub * Book Marks * Electric Literature * Brooklyn Based * The Boston Globe A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong. From the bestselling author of Rich and Pretty comes a suspenseful and provocative novel keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race, and class. Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshapedand unexpected new ones are forgedin moments of crisis. Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home theyve rented for the week. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G. H. are an older coupleits their house, and theyve arrived in a panic. They bring the news that a sudden blackout has swept the city. But in this rural areawith the TV and internet now down, and no cell phone serviceits hard to know what to believe. Should Amanda and Clay trust this coupleand vice versa? What happened back in New York? Is the vacation home, isolated from civilization, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one other?