Leave the World Behind by Rumann Alam, Read by Marin Ireland
An Unforgettable Powerhouse of a Performance
Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile’s editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. We keep our daily episodes short and sweet, with audiobook clips to give you a sample of our featured listens.
Marin Ireland narrates Rumaan Alam’s stunning audiobook Leave the World Behind, which explores race, class, family, and global catastrophe. AudioFile’s Michele Cobb tells host Jo Reed about the National Book Award finalist performed by one of her favorite narrators. A married couple and their children head out of New York City to a quiet area of Long Island for a family vacation. However, the owners of their rental arrive unexpectedly after fleeing a blackout, and the two families—one white and middle class, the other Black and wealthy—cohabitate and try to figure out what’s happened. Whether Ireland is focused on the character dynamics or omnisciently describing the terrifying events of the world at large, she delivers an unforgettable powerhouse of a performance.
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Support for Behind the Mic comes from Blackstone Publishing, a 30-years plus strong independent audiobook publisher that is now also publishing print books and ebooks. This fall, Blackstone is publishing an array of stellar titles—Cecilia Aragon’s memoir Flying Free, which tells the odds-defying story of how she became the first Latina pilot on the US Aerobatic Team; the historical fiction novel Escaping Dreamland by NY Times bestselling author Charlie Lovett; the YA dystopian thriller The Key to Fear from NY Times bestselling author Kristin Cast, and Don’t Move—a horror novel from Darren Wearmouth and television star James S. Murray. Learn about these and more titles from Blackstone’s Fall 2020 list at BlackstonePublishing.com.
