In ‘Entitlement,’ Rumaan Alam examines how money permeates and warps our lives – Houston Public Media

When the last novel by author Rumaan Alam came out, the world just happened to be going through a global pandemic. Leave the World Behind deals with some very familiar, apocalyptic themes and an experience that was surely very relatable to readers at the time: being stuck inside your home for fear of what was happening beyond its walls.

The book was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award and later adapted into a Netflix film of the same name.

His latest book, Entitlement, deals with an issue that bears some more looming, apocalyptic undertones, namely our relationship with money — how it underlies so many aspects of our lives, how we need and aspire to have more of it, and what it does to us when we’re in proximity to those with an abundance of it.

Alam will read from the book at an event with Inprint on Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. at Brockman Hall for Opera at Rice University along with fellow novelist Danzy Senna.

In the audio above, Alam talks with Houston Matters producer Michael Hagerty about how the coincidental timing of the release Leave the World Behind echoed what was happening in the real world. And they discuss the new novel and the issues it addresses.