Luster by Raven Leilani

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New York Times Notable Book of the Year WINNER of the NBCC John Leonard Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020 A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, The New York Times Book Review, O Magazine, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times, Glamour, Shondaland, Boston Globe, and many more! "So delicious that it feels illicit . . . Raven Leilani’s first novel reads like summer: sentences like ice that crackle or melt into a languorous drip; plot suddenly, wildly flying forward like a bike down a hill." —Jazmine Hughes, The New York Times Book Review No one wants what no one wants. And how do we even know what we want? How do we know we’re ready to take it? Edie is stumbling her way through her twenties—sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage—with rules. As if navigating the constantly shifting landscapes of contemporary sexual manners and racial politics weren’t hard enough, Edie finds herself unemployed and invited into Eric’s home—though not by Eric. She becomes a hesitant ally to his wife and a de facto role model to his adopted daughter. Edie may be the only Black woman young Akila knows. Irresistibly unruly and strikingly beautiful, razor-sharp and slyly comic, sexually charged and utterly absorbing, Raven Leilani’s Luster is a portrait of a young woman trying to make sense of her life—her hunger, her anger—in a tumultuous era. It is also a haunting, aching description of how hard it is to believe in your own talent, and the unexpected influences that bring us into ourselves along the way. “An irreverent intergenerational tale of race and class that’s blisteringly smart and fan-yourself sexy.” —Michelle Hart, O: The Oprah Magazine

My first thought after finishing this book: “Did anything actually happen?”

The prose was beautiful and it wasn't necessarily boring, but it honestly felt like nothing of importance happened. I can't figure out what exactly I'm supposed to take away from this book and I just have mixed emotions having finished reading it.

Enjoyed this one...it's nearly 500 pages and I was shocked to realize it was over. For the love of heaven don't give this to a young person.

LUSTER is a stunning debut novel, and I can't stop thinking about it. I freaking loved it.

Content warnings: casual sex, death of a parent, death by suicide, physical violence involving a partner, prior abortion, miscarriage

The synopsis doesn't do this book justice. Sure, there's casual sex, unconventional arrangements, kink...but that all fades into the background when you realize that it's a mechanism to enable Edie's self-exploration, self-destruction, and self-creation.

This book might not be for everyone. It's a discomfiting read, one that explores our base human impulses. Edie's observations on life, race, and class are sometimes very frank, but other times very subtle. Many reviews have labeled this book millennial and singular, but I felt this book was universal and human in the ways that make us nervous.

At 240ish pages this book touches on way more than I can possibly cover with any brevity so I'm focusing on one element that really stood out to me: the art.

Edie is an artist, so of course her paintings and art are a factor in this book. But I'm thinking more about art as character pairings, geometry and abstraction in relationships, and lighting. There are a lot of binaries: push and pull, light and dark, open and close. (This is especially the case with Edie and Eric, and Edie and Rebecca.) Many of the relationships are shapes that convulse, like the triangle between Edie, Rebecca, and Eric, as the book goes on and certain relationships morph in ways that are unexpected. Art can also be unsettling and grotesque, and you get elements of that here.

Nowhere in the book is “luster” mentioned other than the title. I know what luster is but I couldn't really describe it, so I looked it up in the dictionary. Luster is a sheen, a glimmer, sometimes reflective; it can also be a ceramic coating. And I think that captures this book and Edie's multidimensionality so well. Your feelings ripple and change depending on how you look at Edie or this period in her life. And to some extent, luster is something external, like a coat Edie wears and loses, then finds again.

Of course race and the nature of Edie's relationship to and with both Eric and Rebecca as a Black woman with a white couple is a huge aspect of why this book has been buzzy. I'd point you to Own Voices reviews on this (some are tagged below!).

I will say this – to the white reviewers who can't relate or who don't like how “messy” Edie is, take into consideration what that contributes to the narrative. (Very little!) Inadvertently you are reinforcing that Black women need to be perfect or that they need to behave in a way that is understandable and consumable to you.

I've seen a lot of comparisons to QUEENIE (which I haven't read yet), but my mind kept going to PIZZA GIRL as a comp. I thought LUSTER was more evocative and effective though.