'Leave The World Behind' Is A Signature Novel For This Blasted Year

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Rumaan Alam's newly published third novel, "Leave The World Behind," has just been nominated for this year's National Book Award for fiction. Our book critic Maureen Corrigan can see why. Here's her review.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: Rumaan Alam's "Leave The World Behind" is a slippery and duplicitous marvel of a novel. 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." Both 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. 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. Ultimately, though, the evidence can't be denied. Instead of a literary beach novel, we've landed in an up-to-the-minute version of "On The Beach," Nevil Shute's 1957 novel that used to be required high school reading about a looming apocalypse.

As so many novels do, "Leave The World Behind" begins with a journey. Our vacationers, Amanda and Clay, are on the Long Island Expressway driving out to the Hamptons with their two teenaged kids in tow. Clay is a tenured professor of media studies. Even Amanda acknowledges at one point that she doesn't really know what media studies signifies. Amanda is an account director, a job which she confesses largely means the daily sending of emails assessing the job itself. They're a securely middle-class, white, liberal couple, which means they're the quintessential soft target for satire. And Alam merrily proceeds to peel away their self-delusions in this opening section of the novel.

His wit takes on an explicitly socially conscious dimension when that Black couple in their 60s knocks at the door late on the second night of the family's vacation stay. Alam describes George, who goes by his initials G.H., standing holding up his hands in a gesture that was either conciliatory or said don't shoot. By his age, Black men were adept at this gesture. Ruth, G.H.'s wife, looked like the kind of woman you'd see in a television ad for an osteoporosis medication.

Nevertheless, Amanda in particular is suspicious about the couple's claim of being the owners of the house and to be seeking shelter because of a massive blackout that's blanketed the northeast. Cellphones and satellite TV service are out, so there's no way to check their story. What if he's the handy man, Amanda whispers to Clay. What if she's the maid? What if this is just a scam and the blackout or whatever is just a coincidence? Amanda, we're told, was at least appropriately ashamed by her conjecture. But those people didn't look like the sort to own such a beautiful house. They might, though, clean it.

We readers are slyly encouraged by Alam to share Amanda's hesitations. Even to themselves, G.H. and Ruth sometimes seem to be performing their parts. At a later point in the novel, G.H. chuckles at something Clay says. And G.H. thinks to himself it was hard not to assume the role of genial sitcom neighbor. Television created the context, and Black people had to play along. If you're a white reader, however, who's wondering whether this Black couple are who they say they are, you ultimately realize this novel has lured you into confronting your own racial biases, which are never pretty to behold.

The rising panicky dismay that floods the world of Alam's novel is something readers should experience for themselves in real time. So I'll stop talking about the storyline. But I do want to emphasize Alam's rare achievement as a writer. Most novels are fairly easy to categorize. They start off following the rules of a particular genre - domestic fiction, hardboiled mystery, dystopian fantasy, whatever. And they pretty much roll along, adhering to or sometimes subverting those conventions.

What Alam does in this novel, this particular house of fiction, is to quietly remove the retaining walls he's erected in the first third of the story so that by the end, we readers step out into the terror of empty space without understanding how that happened. "Leave The World Behind" is atmospheric and prescient. Its rhythms of comedy alternating with shock and despair mimic so much of the rhythms of life right now. That's more than enough to make it a signature novel for this blasted year.

DAVIES: Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed "Leave The World Behind" by Rumaan Alam.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHUCHO VALDES' "OCHUN")

DAVIES: On tomorrow's show, we talk with filmmaker Kirsten Johnson about her new documentary, "Dick Johnson Is Dead." The title refers to her elderly father, Dick Johnson, who it turns out isn't actually dead. In the movie, Johnson stages accidental deaths of her ailing father in order to cope with his inevitable end. It's also about him moving in with her and his memory loss. I hope you can join us. FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Thea Chaloner and Kayla Lattimore. Our associate producer of digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Seth Kelley directed today's show. For Terry Gross, I'm Dave Davies.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHUCHO VALDES' "OCHUN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.