Raven Leilani's work has been published in Granta, The
Yale Review, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern,
Conjunctions, The Cut, and New England Review, among other
publications. Leilani received her MFA from
NYU and was an Axinn Foundation Writer-in-Residence. Luster is her
first novel.
An Instant New York Times Bestseller, Los Angeles Times Bestseller,
National Indie Bestseller
Longlisted for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Best Reviewed Novel of the Week at Book Marks
A Book Club Pick at Goop, Belletrist, Marie Claire, Esquire, Book
of the Month Club (add-on), Green Apple Books, Odyssey Bookshop,
Bull Moose Bookstore, and Books on the Subway **One of the Most
Anticipated Books of Summer 2020**
Vogue, Elle, Time, The New York Times, Good Morning America online,
The Washington Post, Esquire, The Chicago Tribune, Harper's Bazaar,
Shondaland, Goop, Vulture, The Huffington Post, Parade, USA Today,
COLORLINES, Literary Hub, Pittsburgh City Paper, Bust, Buzzfeed,
Ms. Magazine, Electric Literature, Refinery29, PopSugar, The
Millions, The Rumpus, Observer, Book Riot, Thrillist, Domino,
PureWow, PopSugar, New York Amsterdam News, Debutiful, Write or Die
Tribe, Book Bub, Odyssey, Suitcase, We Are Bookish, Apartment
Therapy, Paperback Paris, Bookshop.org, Green Apple Books
"Exacting, hilarious, and deadly . . . A writer of exhilarating
freedom and daring."
--Zadie Smith, Harper's Bazaar 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 "[Raven Leilani]
is a sharp phrasemaker . . . [and] Luster, a highly pleasurable
interrogation of pleasure . . . There is more than a touch of Ralph
Ellison here, the hypervisible invisible woman who is cast by the
world in categorical terms while trying to be seen for
herself."
--Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker Darkly funny with wicked
insight . . . This keenly observed, dynamic debut is so cutting, it
almost stings.
--Lauren Puckett, Elle "Edie is an African American woman, but not
every African American woman is Edie. What's best about Luster is
precisely her messy, unabashed individuality. As she explores the
world around her, Edie addresses us in a funny, shrewd narrative
voice that precisely describes the wide-ranging contours of her
life, be it losing her virginity, watching Rebecca cut up cadavers,
going to Comic-Con or showing how police respond to two young Black
women walking in a suburban neighborhood."
--John Powers, NPR "Wildly beguiling . . . [Raven Leilani is] a
phenomenal writer, her dense, dazzling paragraphs shot through with
self-effacing wit and psychological insight."
--Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly "This debut novel from
powerhouse writer Raven Leilani . . . deftly subverts the white
gaze while also crafting an unforgettable protagonist. But the real
fire here is Leilani's writing. Her sentences are gorgeous, and
both the prose and the content will make you sweat."
--Sarah Neilson, Shondaland "Blistering . . . thrums with
observational humor . . . Luster is not a novel concerned with
romantic drama. It's all about attention--why we crave it and what
forms it takes. Leilani carefully pulls the strings of Edie,
Rebecca, Eric and Akila, revealing how lonely they all are . . .
Unsettling and surreal."
--Annabel Gutterman, Time
"Strange, hilarious, important."
--Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post "An emotional rollercoaster
that will have you on the verge of tears or in stitches with
laughter."
--Sian Babish, The Chicago Tribune Leilani has a blistering talent
for describing a moment while refusing to name its undercurrents .
. . Leilani [has a] remarkable ability to turn straight sex into
something terrifyingly strange yet familiar, almost as if Edie is
reproducing an othering, fetishized gaze for what is considered
normal. But Luster is also an interesting meditation on social
ethics . . . Luster seems like the first crashing of a new wave of
fiction defined by a world where all the traditional vocabularies
for morality have gone defunct.
--Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic There is nothing on offer
like Luster--the story of a Black woman who is neither heroic nor
unduly tragic . . . She is destructive but tender, ravenous for
experience but deeply vulnerable--and often wickedly funny."
--Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "On every page a shudder of
recognition, then a lol, then an electroshock. It's gutting and
hilarious and lush. Every detail builds so beautifully, I don't
want to spoil anything, but if you want to forget yourself in a
passage . . . 100 times over, this is your next read."
--Tavi Gevinson on Instagram This novel is ridiculously good:
gorgeous, dark, and funny, with sentences that'll wreck you. I will
follow this author anywhere she wants to take me.
--Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House "Narrated with
fresh and wry jadedness, Edie's every disappointment [is] rendered
with a comic twist . . . Edie's life is a mess, her past is filled
with sorrow, she's wasting her precious youth, and yet, reading
about it all is a whole lot of fun."
--Chloe Schama, Vogue "Luster is the kind of novel that makes a
writer jealous . . . [It] brims with the kinds of masterful
sentences one can imagine mentors like Zadie Smith and Jonathan
Safran Foer underlining with linguistic glee. It gleams, as the
title suggests, with words and ideas both profound and deeply
honest."
--Isabel Jones, InStyle "A darkly funny, hilariously moving debut
from a stunning new voice. 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. Raven Leilani crafts a beautiful, bighearted story
about intimacy and art that will astound and wound you. I couldn't
put this one down."
--Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half There are pages in
this book so good they burn your fingers.
--Garth Greenwell on Twitter "Promises to be an August hit . . . As
Edie searches for her identity as an artist and a Black woman, she
spins a tale of intrigue and coming-of-age, all with electric
storytelling."
--Zibby Owens, Good Morning America online "The most thrilling
thing I've read in months."
--Stephanie Danler on Instagram "An irreverent intergenerational
tale of race and class that's blisteringly smart and fan-yourself
sexy."
--Michelle Hart, O: The Oprah Magazine "Compulsively readable."
--Emma Specter, Vogue "Like all great books, Luster eludes easy
categorization. It's a slippery novel about many things--being
young, being Black, being a woman, being depressed, feeling lonely,
latent trauma, sex . . . What is so immediately striking about
Luster--and what sets it apart from the glut of millennial
fiction--is the quality of the writing itself."
--Tomi Obaro, Buzzfeed News "Vibrant, spiky . . . Leilani is a
master . . . a major new talent . . . Luster isn't just a sardonic
book, but a powerful one about emotional transformation."
--Mark Athitakis, USA Today "Mercilessly funny and sharp, Raven
Leilani's Luster is unexpected and utterly fascinating."
--Megan DiTrolio, Marie Claire "Sinking into the pleasures of
Leilani's darkly funny and bitingly insightful prose over an
aimless shut-down weekend is a treat you deserve. With a
highlighter in one hand and Luster in the other, chapter one alone
becomes a riot of yellow stripes."
--Erin Keane, Salon "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, propellent--and a whole lot of fun."
--Kirkus, starred review "Luster is the best debut novel of the
year. It glitters, it pulses, it lives! Simultaneously full of pain
and laughter."
--Emma Straub on Twitter "A rocket-paced, sensual fever dream of
sex, trauma, relationships and conflicting perceptions . . . Luster
is intoxicating and surprising, never letting readers settle into
recognizable patterns. Leilani has crafted an unforgettable novel
about a young woman making her own way."
--Julia Kastner, Shelf Awareness "What stands out here is Leilani's
prose, which is breathless, frantic, and reads like a Twitter wit
grew legs and an IRL identity."
--Hillary Kelly, Vulture "Sexy, funny, and wholly self-aware,
Luster couldn't come at a better time."
--Thrillist "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 "The narrative voice
of this startling novel is layered, complex, pitch-black comic, 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 "An utterly strange
and beautiful book, at once grab-your-gut visceral and the work of
a razor-sharp intellect. The sentences are simply virtuosic."
--C. Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold "Timeless
. . . Luster is lean and focused, yet dense with reference and
detail, the lush prose heightening its tangible specificity.
Leilani also makes smart use of the well-placed long sentence, the
catharsis that can arrive when something comes to an end."
--Laura Adamczyk, A.V. Club "The author of Luster has emerged as
the year's most exciting new literary voice . . . Luster is
succeeding with all its darkness and sharp corners intact, an
unflinching chronicle of a young woman's attempt to make sense of
the cards she's been dealt."
--Roxanne Fequiere, Elle "There are no perfect Black women in Raven
Leilani's debut novel, Luster, and that is by design . . . Leilani
tries to liberate the Black woman figure's range of behaviors,
thoughts, and feelings from an inherent virtuousness or
exceptionalism. This choice challenges readers to recognize Edie's
agency and see her as a young Black woman in progress."
--Lovia Gyarkye, The Atlantic "[Luster] deserves all the hype, and
more."
--Jeva Lange, The Week "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."
--Booklist, starred review "Sexy, funny and haunting, Luster is a
simmering debut."
--Karla Strand, Ms. Magazine "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. Leilani is an irreverent, impeccable
stylist--a voice we need right now."
--Justin Torres, author of We the Animals "In Luster, hunger,
longing, desire, pleasure, discomfort, pain and alienation are all
brilliantly, physically expressed in the protagonist Edie's
body--literally in her gut. The brilliance of this book (or, one
element of it) is the way issues of race and power are felt so
physically, and rendered so intimately you feel them in the pit of
your own stomach."
--Shruti Swamy, Electric Literature "Wonderful."
--Megan Giddings, The PEN America Podcast "A beguiling fever dream
of a novel, shot through with wistfulness, humor, and a kind of
breathless, furious verve. You'll find it impossible to put
down."
--Ling Ma, author of Severance "[A] prismatic interrogation of
love, race, capitalism, and art . . . Through Leilani's modern,
rapid-fire narrative, Luster becomes a hyper-realistic portrait of
a black artist staring head-on at the contradictions of the
kaleidoscopic, fraught world around her."
--Sarah Etter, BOMB "In Luster, Raven Leilani has created a
character unlike any other in recent fiction. A slacker black
queen, a depressive painter, a damn funny woman. The narrator of
this novel tells us of her history and her present life in hypnotic
language that is a pleasure to read. Leilani is such a talented
writer, I rushed to the end of every outrageous sentence to figure
out how she would pull it off."
--Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of We Love You, Charlie Freeman "Luster
hooked us from the opening sex scene . . . 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.com "Electric, heralding a singular new literary voice . . .
Provocative and surprising. Edie is both emblematic of a generation
of detached, fiercely intelligent yet hopelessly drifting young
women, who yearn for something more."
--Kristen Iversen, Refinery29 "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 "Encountering Raven
Leilani's one-of-a kind debut jolted me out of my mid-pandemic
stasis . . . [Luster] is like nothing else I've read this year.
Leilani's vibrant language and unflinching willingness to get down
into the muck of human behavior make each sentence of this novel
feel like a revelation and a discovery."
--Lindsay Miller, PopSugar "The threat of a sharp edge is on every
page . . . Interior monologues are written like the tenebrist
masterpieces Edie loves . . . Sex is the answer to many of the
book's questions, yet the fact of fucking is nowhere near as
thrilling as what Leilani understands: the endless ways the desires
of another can be made to feel like our own."
--Haley Mlotek, Frieze "The perfect antidote to the taut ball of
nerves we've all been carrying around since March . . . This story
combines social commentary, racial politics and searing humor.
E-readers, you might want to forgo the Kindle for the actual book.
You'll want something to grip."
--Toby Lowenfels, What's Up Moms A coming-of-age story that's sure
to keep you turning pages.
--Stephanie Long, Refinery29 "Luster . . . grapples with loneliness
in a way that is socially relevant, raw, vulnerable--and darkly
funny . . . Edie's internal dialogue is often tender and revealing
. . . A much-needed examination of the intersection of Blackness,
class, sexuality and power."
--Ashendri Wickremasinghe, The Toronto Star "A smart and bold
exploration of self-worth and self-appreciation . . . both sexy and
sad, angry but funny, with impressive literary prose that is blunt
and mischievous, luring you with little intention to let go . . .
Leilani has given us a novel of our times."
--Carissa Chesanek, PANK A stunning debut from a powerful new voice
. . . Narrative drive oozes out of every sentence. This novel is a
pleasure to read on all levels."
--Catie Disabato, Cinnamon Magazine "The narrator of Luster . . .
is the fierce, unruly antidote to what Jess Bergman called the
'remote avatars of contemporary malaise'--she is not cool, nor
detached, nor noncommittal, but absolutely bursting with thoughts
and feelings and desires, some of which often spill over and make a
mess, or a scene, or a bonfire. Edie talks shit but also takes
it--she's hilariously caustic about the world around her, but her
criticism never feels empty. I loved every minute."
--Emily Temple, Lit Hub "Leilani's writing is cerebral and raw, and
this debut novel will establish her as a powerful new voice . . .
[She] has proven herself to be a keen social observer--especially
about the truths that some people don't want to see."
--Jessica Wakeman, BookPage "Sometimes there's a book that everyone
in the publishing world is talking about. Luster is that book."
--Adam Vitcavage, Electric Literature "Debuts as accomplished as
Luster make you exclaim 'what a find' at the end of the novel . . .
It is disruptive, darkly funny, and searing--five stars! Read it if
you like to navigate social landscapes, sexual politics and
interracial relationships clothed as an entertaining, and riveting
book."
--Resh Susan, The Book Satchel "Leilani has an uncanny, genius way
with sentences. Her more humorous lines unravel and fork like snake
tongues into many directions at once; but in moments of absolution,
they strike like a burning torch."
--Alex Zafiris, Observer "Tackling questions of race, age, and
power, Luster is a must-read new novel that perfectly captures our
strange age."
--K.W. Colyard, Bustle "Despite, or perhaps because of, the various
tiny sentence-level explosions of violence and delight, it's
difficult to overstate the uncanny familiarities of Edie's voice,
world, work . . . It sits in the dizzyingly perfect groove of the
novel that's under capitalism and knows it."
--Tajja Isen, The End of the World Review "Funny, raw and brutally
honest, Raven Leilani brilliantly captures the trials of your
twenties."
--Kailey Brennan, Write or Die Tribe "You should absolutely run out
(or log on quickly) to buy Raven Leilani's Luster . . . Brilliant,
captivating."
--Emily Temple, BOMB "Open relationships, racial dynamics and class
form the backbone of Leilani's darkly humorous yet insightful
debut."
--Rae Boocock, Suitcase Nothing if not an ambitious work . . .
Refreshingly honest about Edie's ambivalence, desperation, and
longing . . . Luster is a novel about what it means to be a
black-female flaneur . . . The real architecture of this novel
rests on Edie--the young black vixen, usually relegated to the
observed and the consumed, becoming the observer and hungrily
eating up the worlds around her.
--Kaitlyn Greenidge, Virginia Quarterly Review "New Yorkers, I dare
you to not find this novel relatable af."
--Sara Levine, Betches "An infinite scroll of pathos and precision
and an anthem of decolonizing the Black body, Luster marks the rise
of an unmissable talent. Mark my words, Raven is a phoenix on the
rise."
--Paperback Paris "Leilani is a voice America desperately needs and
Luster delivers."
--debutiful "A lyrical bildungsroman . . . staggeringly brilliant .
. . Luster feels like--and has rightfully been hailed as--the
entrance of a singular, breakthrough literary voice . . . Leilani's
writing is haunted and poetic, brimming with incisive jabs at the
indignities and disorientations of young Black womanhood, but one
of the great and subtle feats of the novel is its ability to
observe these realities as pedestrian, grounded within the interior
of Edie's life. Moments never feel, in themselves, like stand-ins
for a treatise of the 'isms' of America. Instead, encounters unfold
strangely in Edie's lonesome, mournful world."
--Brandon Yu, Datebook "One of the year's most anticipated titles
for good reason: this story of race, privilege, art, and sexuality
is brilliant."
--Sabienna Bowman, PopSugar "This book made me gasp. The prose! To
arrange 10 words I've known for most of my life and make me see
something new in them is startling . . . I recommend this novel to
anyone who is looking for a disruptive take on a summer book. It
brings the heat and then some."
--Sacha Vega, The Cha Cha Reader "[Luster is] so good . . . It's
refreshing, it's honest, it's very funny. Her sentences rarely end
the way I think they're going to."
--Katie Yee, Lit Hub's "The Week in Books LIVE"
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