Book Review: "Leave the World Behind" by Rumaan Alam

This book came highly recommended by a close friend of mine, and with the 2020 election over, I was more willing to lean into the dystopian atmosphere. I'm certainly glad that I did. As a reader, I found the book rewarding on several levels, and as a writer, I feel like Rumaan Alam's sentence structure and level of detail has forever changed my writing. 

The story starts out with Amanda and Clay, successful Brooklyn types, and their children as they head off to the remote reaches of Long Island to, you guessed it, leave the world behind. Those are the words from the rental ad for the house they are staying in. This first part of the story really allows you to get to know the family, and to unwind with them. There are subtleties to this first part of the book that make you take notice, such as the detailed list of chosen groceries. In a story where you know things are meant to go wrong, a list of groceries is like a hint that food supply will later become an issue. In this particular scene, Amanda is shopping for groceries during her vacation. There's no sense of precaution or urgency, which is a lovely way to build tension. 

The Era of Coronoavirus and Social Distancing: Another Mark on the Millenial Generation

There's a lot to fear in a pandemic. Some days the anticipatory grief is so overwhelming, to keep from crying I resort to naming off five physical objects in the room. This, ladies and gentlemen, is coping in the age of social distancing and Coronavirus.

And I'm not even the most heavily hit; I lived a relatively isolated life before all of this. I've always been an independent introvert, and I live up in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. In the middle of a hill, to be precise. My nature is a solitary one for the most part as I work from home and spend my free time writing fiction. I have a small group of amazing friends that I am eternally grateful for and have been able to share the emotional weight of isolation with all of them. It helps. If you're feeling lonely, reach out. A text, a good old fashioned phone call, or this newfangled technology of FaceTime and Zoom.

I see the extroverts around me beginning to sink beneath the weight of limited contact. More than that, there is the anticipatory grief of imagining that were we to get sick and need to be hospitalized; we would be absolutely alone. We would face death and fight for our lives isolated from everyone we love. It's a terrifying notion. One that threatens my daily sense of peace.

This is only the first month.

Book Response: "Parable of the Talents" Book 2 of the Earthseed Series by Octavia Butler

Have you ever picked up a book that seems like you were meant to read it at that particular time in

your life? Like, the book finds you and feeds your soul? It's one of the beautiful things that can happen to book readers. Less beautiful, but still filled with awe - recognizing an unfolding of events in a story written years ago that mimic what is happening in your own time. Case in point: Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Talents."

I picked up the first book in Butler's Earthseed series, "Parable of the Sower" as dystopian genre research for publishing my own dystopian saga. The first book in the series takes place on the West Coast as people take to walking the roads as civil unrest boils over and resources are depleted in southern California. It's a desolate picture of income inequality and global warming reaching a tipping point.

In the second book in the series, we pick back up with main character Lauren Olamina and her followers years after we leave her at the end of book one. The group has built a community, called Acorn, that all rests on the Earthseed principles that Lauren has been preaching. Earthseed is a religion based on fundamental truths about God. The first line in most of the passages is "God is Change," and Lauren means this quite literally. The world is built on impermanence and change and why wouldn't the force behind such a constant state of "becoming" be considered God?