Luster

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 LeilaniΓÇÖs 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." ΓÇöJazmine 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 weΓÇÖre ready to take it?
Edie is stumbling her way through her twentiesΓÇösharing 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 marriageΓÇöwith rules.
As if navigating the constantly shifting landscapes of contemporary sexual manners and racial politics werenΓÇÖt hard enough, Edie finds herself unemployed and invited into EricΓÇÖs homeΓÇöthough 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 LeilaniΓÇÖs Luster is a portrait of a young woman trying to make sense of her lifeΓÇöher hunger, her angerΓÇöin 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.
ΓÇ£An irreverent intergenerational tale of race and class thatΓÇÖs blisteringly smart and fan-yourself sexy.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇöMichelle Hart, O: The Oprah Magazine