Everyone knows it’s much easier to write the set-up of a sci-fi novel than it is to satisfyingly resolve it, so in this book the author des not even bother to try. Surprisingly, it works.
A family of four head to a rural Airbnb outside New York. They go grocery shopping and we learn a bit too much about their sex lives. Then in the middle of the night an older couple knock on their door. It is the owners of the Airbnb, who have fled New York because ‘something’ has happened.
SPOILER ALERT: you never find out what the something is, and it doesn’t matter. Things get very creepy. For one thing, the deer start to mass into huge herds. For another, there is an incredibly loud noise. And then some flamingos arrive and the childrens’ teeth start falling out.
I wish LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND had been longer. I wanted to know where it was going, because while it did mounting terror very well, it was strange for it to end, as it did for me, mid-mount.
I also struggled slightly with how literary it was. I love the author’s twitter feed (you should follow @rumaan) which is hilarious and contemporary and unfussy. The novel had a bit too much philosophizing for me, basil chopping, and etc.
And yet I would indeed feel very proud if I had written it. Strongly recommend. Makes you feel COVID’s not that bad.