Luster

At the beginning of this book, I recognized the ingredients that make up popular erotic novels. The main character, Edie, a Black woman and struggling artist, is beginning a relationship with an older, wealthy, successful white man in an open marriage. There’s a power imbalance. To a certain extent, this excites Edie, and in this way, the book fits neatly into the parameters of the genre.

However, the relationship becomes messy, and Edie’s life, both with and away from Eric, is fraught with bad decisions. Race, wealth, and gender intersect with sex in a complex and uncomfortable milieu. Through all… show more.

Though this book is largely about the toxic extramarital affair between a young black girl and a married white man, it shines light on the competitive work environment between editors in publishing.

It also becomes satire in its depiction of what kind of works from Black authors publishers are keen on commissioning. Cue in its critique of the proliferation of slave narratives in publishing, and this funny, sexy, and deeply sad novel will leave a huge mark on readers. 

Luster follows Edie who starts the novel with a publishing job but after being fired, ends up living in a house in the suburbs with the man she is sleeping with, Eric, his wife, and their adopted Black daughter.

Edie’s financial situation is a rightful driver for her choices. We get vivid descriptions of her apartment and the cockroaches that reside there in contrast to the peace of Eric’s family home.

Additionally, Edie is a painter, and Leilani’s deft handling of how to manage being an artist when creative freedom is predicated on the ability to have time and money… show more.

Luster, a spectacular debut from a brilliant new voice in literature, hit every emotion in me.

Incredibly grounded, timely, and unique, the story follows a young Black woman, Edie, as she finds her way in an ever-evolving city and in the stagnancy of romance.

She starts to fall in love with an older, white married man with an adopted daughter. Soon enough, she becomes tangled in his life… including his family.

This novel will keep you on the edge of your seat finding out how the events unfold as she moves further into his inner circle. 

In the late 1990s I arrived in New York City to work in publishing. For a certain period of time my salary was so low and my luck so bad, I wound up homeless. This 2020 Kirkus Prize-winning debut novel of a twenty-something Black woman working in publishing and financially flailing felt familiar and real to me. She begins an affair with a white man who lives with his wife and their adopted Black daughter in New Jersey and after she loses her job, moves in with the couple. Her sentences dazzle with wit and psychological insight. Kirkus called it… show more.

In Luster, Edie a disaffected Black woman in her twenties becomes entrenched in a S&M-tinged relationship with a white man in his forties in an open marriage. The plot is confrontational and the characterization all-consuming, and you want to read fast but the sentences—purposefully jammed to bursting with imagery—force you to slow down to absorb them. I’m a sucker for a smart woman who is nonetheless fixated on a flawed love interest, who thinks she sees herself clearly but maybe the reader knows different.