“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
Edie is stumbling through her twenties—sharing a subpar apartment, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric, a man with a family in New Jersey, including a wife who has agreed to an open marriage—with rules. Soon, Edie finds herself invited into Eric’s home (not by Eric), where she becomes 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 depiction of how hard it is to believe in your own talent, and of the unexpected influences that bring us into ourselves.
HARDCOVER PRAISE FOR LUSTER
“Leilani’s radiant debut belongs to its brilliant, fully formed narrator. Old soul Edie has an otherworldly way of seeing the world and reflecting it back to readers, peppering experiences of past and current despair with acceptance and humor but never sacrificing depth, of which her story has miles. A must for seekers of strongly narrated, original fiction.” —Annie Bostrom, Booklist (starred review)
“An unstable ballet of race, sex, and power. Leilani’s characters act in ways that often defy explanation, and that is part of what makes them so alive and so mesmerizing: Whose behavior, in real life, can be reduced to simple cause and effect? Sharp, strange, propellant—and a whole lot of fun.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Leilani debuts with a moving examination of a young Black woman’s economic desperation and her relationship to violence . . . The narration is perceptive, funny, and emotionally charged. Edie’s frank, self-possessed voice will keep a firm grip on readers all the way to the bitter end.” —Publishers Weekly
“Charged and hypnotic, Luster is poised to become one of the books that defines what it’s like to be young in this moment.” —goop
“It’s brilliant—cutting, weird, and full of dark humor. I tore through it and have been thinking about it since. That’s always a good sign.” —Anna Baryshnikov, Belletrist
“Darkly funny with wicked insight . . . This keenly observed, dynamic debut is so cutting, it almost stings.”
—Lauren Puckett, Elle
“Luster is one of those books that makes the world seem both clearer and more interesting than you thought it was . . . But what really makes Luster sing is Leilani’s ability to evoke with precise and damning detail the hypocrisy of the smugly virtuous white liberal landscape Edie is trying to navigate. There’s plenty to unpack here.”
—Constance Grady, Vox
“Sometimes, on very rare occasions, you read a debut novel with a narrative voice that is so assured, so confident, so astute, and so devastatingly funny, it leaves you reeling.” —Tomi Obaro, BuzzFeed
“[Raven Leilani’s] writing is exacting, hilarious, and deadly . . . none of the familiar categories—millennial writing, women’s writing, African-American writing—could quite express or contain the book I was reading, which, with the lightest of touches, skewers our contemporary moment, and announces a writer of exhilarating freedom and daring.” —Zadie Smith, Harper’s Bazaar
“Raw, racy, and utterly mesmerizing, Luster is among the most dazzling novels of the year, marking the arrival of a major new voice in American letters . . . Dreamlike, tender, and big-hearted, Luster is a must-read from an immeasurably talented new writer.” —Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire
“Leilani draws on a long lineage of invisibility, from [Ralph] Ellison to Toni Morrison to the haunting spirits of Jesmyn Ward. Edie recognizes the absurdity of her situation, its unfairness, while still mining it for wry humor, the ridiculousness of rushing along on a roller coaster with a man old enough to be her father, while still enjoying the ride.” —Lee Thomas, Los Angeles Review of Books
“I would have loved Luster for the premise alone: a young woman moves in with her lover and his wife. But Leilani’s novel also explores issues of age, gender, income, and race with hilarious and brilliant prose.”
—Katherine Heiny, Literary Hub
“Narrative drive oozes out of every sentence. This novel is a pleasure to read on all levels; from the macro considerations like perspective and plot down to the micro word choices, everything is firing on all cylinders.”
—Catie Disabato, Cinnamon Mag
“Raven Leilani’s hypnotic debut novel, Luster, is every bit as cathartic as it is cerebral in its devotion to one Black woman’s pursuit of harmless passion and purpose in an era inured to uncertainty . . . Luster marks the arrival of a writer who inflames her pages with an infinite scroll of pathos and precision . . . It will come as no surprise when Leilani takes her place on the front lines of the new literary generation.” —Paris Close, Paperback Paris
ADDITIONAL AUTHOR PRAISE FOR LUSTER
“Darkly funny, hilariously moving, Luster follows the unforgettable Edie, a hapless young woman suffocating under her own loneliness, whose caustic observations made me laugh out loud and gasp in recognition. A beautiful, bighearted story about intimacy and art that will astound and wound you.” —Brit Bennett, author of The Mothers
“The narrative voice of this startling novel is layered, complex, pitch-black comedy and deadly earnest, even ardent, in its will to sift through the chaos and idiocy of our madhouse culture and find some glimpse of human reality. Raven Leilani is intellectually supple and steely at the same time; she thinks and perceives blessedly outside any kind of norm. [She] has made a truly lustrous piece of art.”
—Mary Gaitskill, author of This Is Pleasure
“A beguiling fever dream of a novel, shot through with wistfulness, humor, and a kind of breathless, furious verve. Impossible to put down.” —Ling Ma, author of Severance
“Raven Leilani’s sentences pulse and writhe and shimmer and gut-punch. Above all they tell the truth, even when it hurts.” —Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House
“Hilarious, honest, bursting with desire and sharp insight, Luster is absolutely captivating. I didn’t so much read it as gulp it down. There’s so much to learn here, so much to admire. Raven Leilani is an irreverent, impeccable stylist—a voice we need right now.” —Justin Torres, author of We the Animals
“Raven Leilani is a writer of unusual daring, with a voice that is unique and fully formed. There is humor, intelligence, emotion, and power in her work. I cannot think of a writer better suited to capture our moment.” —Katie Kitamura, author of A Separation
“Raven Leilani’s style is a truly original mix of the new and the wise, of wit and despair. She has poignantly captured the obsession that drives, and often destroys, every true artist. I adored Luster for its honesty and weird beauty.”
—Sara Baume, author of Spill Simmer Falter Wither