Leave the World Behind

Despite being written prior to the pandemic it feels like the perfect encapsulation of that fraught time. The escape of affluent New Yorkers from the city to some wooded retreat to mitigate against the push of people in elevators and the subway. The think pieces and countless “Why I Left” essays that appeared constantly in the early days of lockdown. All of it mirrored by Amanda and Clay's retreat to a rental that promises to “leave the world behind” with their teenaged kids in tow. It's all sunny relaxation until the Washingtons arrive at their doorstep.

Surely this wasn't a home that black people owned thinks Amanda, that this was some con perpetrated by the cleaning staff to some nefarious end. Her liberal values completely overrun by previously hidden prejudices, fuelled by the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing. Sounds familiar. And the disaster, much like Covid, isn't clearly defined. Things are bad, we're just not exactly sure how bad.

So what do we do when the end of the world comes? Bake a cake, pour ourself another drink and go swimming. Or bake sourdough bread, adopt a pet and buy a Peloton. Either way it seems we just keep moving forward in uncertainty. So yeah, the book is all undercurrent and uneasy vibes that I can see being frustratingly vague - but that's a feature not a bug. The book feels all the more relevant with most of us having emerged from Covid. A pitch perfect Netflix adaption to boot.