B&N Reads, Books You Need To Read, Page To Screen

Film has the Power to Bring Readers to Books: Rumaan Alam on Adapting Leave the World Behind

By Miwa Messer / December 4, 2023 at 1:22 pm

We’ve been huge fans of Rumaan Alam’s since we tapped his debut novel, Rich and Pretty, for our Discover Great New Writers program (now our Discover Pick of the Month) when it was first published. Stunning and deeply satisfying, Rumaan’s third novel, Leave the World Behind was a B&N Book Club pick and a finalist for the National Book Award, and it’s about to hit screens everywhere as a film written and directed by Sam Esmail, and starring Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha’la, Farrah Mackenzie, Charlie Evans and Kevin Bacon.

Rumaan jumped on a Zoom call to riff on handing his books over to readers, film adaptations (and how he came to E.M. Forster’s novels via the films of James Ivory), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, what he learned from reading Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, and more.

B&N: We’re about to get the screen version of your broody, atmospheric third novel, Leave the World Behind. It’s a big shift in tone from your earlier novels — did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, it was going to become a thing that was bigger than the story you were working on?

Rumaan Alam: I had an impulse to do something different, that my first two books ended up seeming — with some distance — really close to one another. To be perfectly honest, Leave the World Behind was my second book of a two-book deal, and it felt like I had an opportunity to push myself. The publisher already owned the book, so I could try something a little different, and I could try to be a different kind of writer. I think that as a writer, you’re always hopefully progressing. You’re always responding to what you’ve been reading and what you’ve been thinking about, and those things change over time. Leave the World Behind is a product of the self in 2018 and 19, when I was writing that book, which was just a different person than the person who wrote my first two books in 2015, and then into 2016, and 17. So that kind of evolution seems really natural when you talk about it from that distance. And but did I have a sense that it would work? No, of course not. It’s always a gamble.

B&N: I remember getting a bound manuscript of Leave the World Behind and tearing through it. You’ve always been a very propulsive kind of writer, but I knew I was holding something different in my hands. And of course, there’s nothing worse than running out of something to read, which is all I’m going to say, in reference to the book. If you haven’t read the book, go back and find out what I’m talking about, because it’s fabulous. And I was that kid to where it’s like, nothing worse than running out of stuff to read.

Rumaan Alam: That happened to me also when I was 11.

B&N: We carry this stuff around with us. I was really excited with the way you held back and never fully explained some of the things that another writer might have chosen to fully explain; I was just dropped into this world. And I thought, Well, if there’s anyone I’m going to trust, it’s Rumaan. The book really delivers. It’s very tightly written, and you get a lot into 300-something pages. But now you’ve handed it over to people who are not you. It takes a village to make a film, and you’ve got actors and the director and the producers and the screenwriters. What was that experience like for you?

The truth is that, as a writer, you hand it over to the reader. The execution of a film and adaptation is really an act of readerly interpretation

Rumaan Alam: The truth is that, as a writer, you hand it over to the reader. The execution of a film and adaptation is really an act of readerly interpretation. And I don’t go home with every reader and vet how he or she is responding to what I’ve attempted to do. It’s not possible. I don’t think that necessarily a book comes to life as a sort of mental film; I don’t think that’s really the right analogy, but in some ways, it’s not dissimilar — and I can’t control it. What I can control is what’s on the page. Knowing that I had to cede control to a filmmaker who’s also a screenwriter and then to the cast to execute his vision of the book was like a trust fall. And it’s easier to do when you respect the person you’re working with. Sam Esmail, who wrote the adaptation and directed the film, his work speaks for itself. When I talked to him, the conversation that we had was not, Oh, how am I going to turn this third person book into an experience on the screen? We didn’t have that conversation. He said to me, What were you thinking about? What have you been reading? What movies do you love? What plays do you love? We had that conversation, which is the conversation you would have in a bookstore. That’s suggested to me that what he does is, of course, very distinct from what I do as a novelist, but it’s not a world apart. There was a common language and a common interest in art. And he was animated by his own feeling of what you’re describing, which is when you read the book, and you feel excited about it, and you’re like, Oh, what was this? What was this? That just laid the groundwork, I think, for what has been a great relationship. And of course, the finished film is absolutely amazing.

B&N: There are people who have feelings about movies and books and adaptation. I’m one of these people who’s more whatever-gets-you-here-I’m-happy-to-see-you. The film is an entirely different experience from reading, Leave the World Behind, and there’re some stylistic changes, there’re some story changes. What are your thoughts about adaptations?

Rumaan Alam: The conventions of film demand something different than the convention to the page, and so Sam has to adapt. That’s his task.

I like films, I like books, I don’t consider those mutually exclusive. I like some adaptations for cinema of books. Some I like less — it depends on my own my feeling about the text, and ultimately, that’s immaterial, that’s a private set of tastes.

I like films, I like books, I don’t consider those mutually exclusive. I like some adaptations for cinema of books. Some I like less — it depends on my own my feeling about the text, and ultimately, that’s immaterial, that’s a private set of tastes. What I know is that film has a power culturally that the book just doesn’t, because film is an experience of mass entertainment in a way the book simply isn’t at this point in our culture. Film has the power to bring readers to books. And I include myself in that. when I was 15 years old and watching James Ivory’s adaptations of E.M. Forester books, I didn’t know who E.M. Forester was, I had never read Howard’s End. I was just a gay kid, watching any movie with Emma Thompson, and Helena Bonham Carter. I’m watching Howards End, thinking, This is amazing. I want to read this book. And so then I read the book. It’s a pretty faithful adaptation. But there’s a difference, of course, because, again, film and books are different. But I have to acknowledge that because of James Ivory, I read E.M. Forster. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

B&N: I think it’s a great thing, actually. Wings of the Dove. Did I maybe revisit Henry James because of that film? Yeah…

Rumaan Alam: I am very fond of that adaptation because that’s a good one. That’s a good one and Wings of the Dove is a tough book to read. It’s demanding. It’s a book from a different time in language, and still obviously worth reading because Henry James is a genius. But if the movie can spark that in you and make you fall in love with it… Todd Field made a film called In the Bedroom, which is based on short stories. It was unbelievable. Unbelievable as a work of cinema, and then it returns me to Andre Dubus, who was a writer who I knew, which was to say like, these are artists who are taking work that they love and saying, I see something of value in it. And they have this vast audience, right? There are people who want to see In the Bedroom because they love Marisa Tomei or Sissy Spacek, and that audience may never have come across Andre Dubus, and then they see the film. And they think, Oh, maybe I should read these stories. And they’re beautiful stories. And I think whatever is bringing people to the book — which is of course, my, my first love and your first love —I’m never going to dismiss that. I think that’s very powerful.

B&N: I’m right there with you. Can we talk about influences for a second, though? You just mentioned what Sam was asking you, and I’m going to follow him for a second, because he asked you to talk about some of the films and plays that you love. I think that’s kind of cool that you’re pulling from all of these different places to make a new thing.

Rumaan Alam: Of course, the novel as a form is my is my true love. But when I was writing Leave the World Behind, I was aspiring to something that I associate with the dramatic — not the cinematic, but the dramatic. And so Edward Albee was really looming for me. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is a play that it’s beautiful on the page, but when you see it performed, you start to feel like you’re trapped at an absolutely insane cocktail party, with people who have really gone off the rails. And that was the feeling I aspired to in Leave the World Behind; you’re watching something, and then eventually you start to feel like you’re actually inside of it with them. And that’s something that a dramatic performance is uniquely able to do. I was thinking about cinema in terms of its mood because cinema has something to do with mood that the page doesn’t always exploit.

And so I was thinking about Michael Haneke. When I was writing Leave the World Behind, there’s that feeling of menace, but everything that’s happening is totally normal. But there’s a feeling of menace. And of course, in that same period, I was reading Stephen King, because if you want to look at somebody who was really adept at looking at the everyday and finding something horrific in it, you know, we happen to be alive at the same time as one of the people who is just best at that. And I read Pet Sematary, it absolutely scared the bejesus out of me. And what was so instructive about reading Pet Sematary for me, was that stuff happens in that led by page 30, you’re like, Oh, my God, what is going on in this book. He does not spend a lot of time winding up, he simply pushes you into the deep end. And I thought that was really instructive. My book doesn’t quite work that way. But I think it sort of moves at a different clip because of King’s ability to show me how effective that can be. Of course, there’s influence that I’m not even able to articulate, because I don’t even I’m not even conscious of it. I, I was coming up with a period of reading a lot of Patrick Modiano. On the face of it, Modiano’s body of work has very little to do with Leave the World Behind, but I had digested him in that period of time, so there has to be some relationship to that material. And it’s just illegible to me. And maybe over time, it’ll be clearer. Or maybe it’s not there. That’s how influence works: It’s hard to trace.

B&N: It’s hard to trace, but it’s really great to hear about because it just reminds us that all pieces of art are connected in some way to other people. It reminds us that there’s stuff out there that’s kind of bigger than all of us, right?

It’s all this sort of enterprise of human creativity. You have to remind yourself that you can feel a spark from listening to music, from going to see a dance, from wandering around the museum, going to the bookstore.

Rumaan Alam: Yes. If you’re a novelist, you’re working within a vast tradition that is connected in very deep ways to the theater, to the opera, to the ballet, to painting. It’s all this sort of enterprise of human creativity. You have to remind yourself that you can feel a spark from listening to music, from going to see a dance, from wandering around the museum, going to the bookstore. Going to library is one way to fill yourself up creatively. But you have these other tools and you should use them.

B&N: So before I let you go…I have to ask you about the new novel…

Rumaan Alam: I have been working on a book for the past couple of years, it’s called Entitlement, and it will come out in the fall of 2024. I’m thrilled to reach the point where other readers can come into the room, booksellers will start to see it, librarians will start to see it, other agents will start to see it. And then it sort of feels real.

I’m really, really excited about the book, I tried, much as I said to you about Leave the World Behind. I recognize the great privilege I have now professionally, that I have a little bit of leverage, I have a reader who knows my name. And I should use that to push myself creatively. And so the new book, I think, is different. It’s about the relationship between a 30-something woman in Obama era New York City, and her boss, who is an 80-something philanthropist who’s giving away his family fortune. It’s not a romantic relationship. It’s sort of a friendship, but it’s the kind of relationship that I haven’t written about in the past. It’s a book that’s a lot about money, which is something that I’ve written about in the past, but it’s about money in a very concrete way. I’ve often written about money and class, and there’s a tension between the possession of money and the lack of money. This is exploring some of that same territory, but I think the vantage is slightly different. And I’m really excited about that. I’m really excited that it now feels like other we can welcome other readers into that room.

I’m really excited that it now feels like other we can welcome other readers into that room.

B&N: I can’t wait. I’ve been hearing about this novel for more than a minute and I cannot, cannot wait to read it. And can’t wait for new readers to come to Leave the World Behind after they see it in theaters or on Netflix.