Leave The World Behind. Alam, Rumaan. Modern First Editions

Hardcover first edition - First printing. The author's disturbing third novel - the title ostensibly refers to a comment in an airbnb rental on Long Island, but of course it also refers to facing a post-apocalyptic world - with some insights into racial attitudes, class and family life thrown in along the way. Whole lives are encapsulated in single sentences. Basis for the very good 2023 film starring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Myha'la, and Mahershala Ali, but far more subtle and thought-provoking. Finalist for the National Book Award - the judges' citation called it "elegant, sensuous, thrilling, taut. It is an incisive examination of race and class, an absorbing story about what the beginning of the end of the world might look like. This novel is a towering achievement. Rumaan Alams prose is precise, pointed, gorgeous. The characters he brings to life and their humanity are so finely observed. Leave the World Behind will want you to do anything but that." 341 pp. Fine in fine first issue dust jacket.