Luster
Author: Raven Leilani
Published by: Picador
Pages: 230
Format: Hardback
My Rating ★★★★
Author: Raven Leilani
Published by: Picador
Pages: 230
Format: Hardback
My Rating ★★★★
Edie is just trying to survive. She's messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office, is sleeping with all the wrong men, and has failed at the only thing that meant anything to her, painting. No one seems to care that she doesn't really know what she's doing with her life beyond looking for her next hook-up.
And then she meets Eric, a white, middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn't have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair.
As if navigating the constantly shifting landscape of sexual and racial politics as a young black woman wasn't already hard enough, with nowhere else left to go, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Eric's home and family.
And then she meets Eric, a white, middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn't have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair.
As if navigating the constantly shifting landscape of sexual and racial politics as a young black woman wasn't already hard enough, with nowhere else left to go, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Eric's home and family.
My thoughts:
Luster is the 2020 debut novel from Raven Leilani. The book follows a black woman in her twenties who gets involved with a fortysomething white man in an open marriage. It cleverly examines her life and explores loneliness, loss and her longing to belong. It is not always an easy read, and there are some very ugly moments. It’s so uncomfortable and stressful yet also beautiful, haunting and unashamedly honest.
Leilani creates a bold and distinct voice with Edie, who is struggling to find herself while searching for human connections. Edie narrates with total honesty allowing readers to get to know her as this unique, realistic, flawed character. Yet we also see her vulnerable side. She makes some ugly mistakes and sometimes walks the line morally. At times I wanted to shout at her, and other times I wanted to hug her.
Edie has had a complicated life so far and throughout the book we are offered little snippets into her backstory: her mother killed herself one day after painting the kitchen mauve, she suffers with IBS and has trouble making friends, yet there is precious little self-pity in these pages. She just accepts things and keeps going, even when Eric is violent towards her.
At just twenty-three years old, Edie is adrift. After making some highly inappropriate sexual choices, she loses her admin job in the publishing industry and finds herself with nowhere to go - until the wife of her married lover takes her in. Edie becomes engrained in the Walker family: continuing to slyly see Eric, accompanying Rebecca to work where she performs autopsies, and forming a relationship with their adopted Black daughter, Akila.
Luster is far from happy yet I couldn’t put it down. It’s mean spirited, raw, sometimes funny, brutally smart, and strangely emotional. An interesting and well-written story. I read in shock, in awe, and sometimes, admittedly, in horror. I was transfixed.
Overall reaction: