But though her typical millennial experiences – Leilani lives in Brooklyn and worked as a Postmates delivery girl as an aspiring writer fresh out of college – helped to inform her debut novel, the buzz the book is generating means the author herself is now anything but. "An irreverent intergenerational tale of race and class that's blisteringly smart and fan-yourself sexy.Raven Leilani’s voice is bubbling over with enthusiasm when she answers the phone, despite a time difference that means our conversation is taking place at an hour the typical millennial might consider less than ideal. 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. 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. Edie may be the only Black woman young Akila knows. She becomes a hesitant ally to his wife and a de facto role model to his adopted daughter.
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.Īs 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 is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. 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 ReviewĪnd how do we even know what we want? How do we know we're ready to take it?Įdie 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.
One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020Ī 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! 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 A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
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