12 - Rumaan Alam and the Apocalyptic Rorschach Test

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This week Rumaan Alam presents us with a wholly ambiguous end of the world. Rumaan’s new novel, Leave the World Behind has taken the publishing landscape by storm. Reviews are everywhere and critics are shouting its name from the rooftops, with good reason.

Leave the World Behind is a strange, uneasy tale of the world going wrong. What begins as a family getaway to Long Island spirals into fear as strangers arrive, bringing news of a blackout in New York City. From there, things only get worse as the possibilities of what is actually happening become terrifyingly limitless.  

We spend a good hour talking crises of masculinity, why kids are better equipped for apocalypse than their parents, and why literary fiction needs to get the chip off its shoulder a little. We also both realise that we’d be functionally useless in any kind of real crisis.

A few books mentioned in this episode include:

•  Swimming Home (2011), by Deborah Leavy. 
• Never Let Me Go (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Pet Sematary (1983) by Stephen King

 Enjoy!

Come talk books with us on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected].

Thanks to Terry Smith Audio for sound editing.

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