Edie is the only Black woman working at a children’s book publisher where she hopes to get promoted from reception to illustrator. But when they hire another, younger, hungrier, lighter-skinned Black lady, Edie is fired. It’s racism, tokenism, an outrage. It’s also because Edie fucked most of the men in the office and isn’t good at her job. So, lacking any other option, she moves in with her married white boyfriend, his white wife, and their recently adopted 11yo Black daughter. It’s every bit as strange as it sounds but this book blew my mind. A story of alienation, desperation, and bewildering tenderness, Luster is a darkly curious dive into unconventional relationships, the surprising ways in which people bond, and what they can teach each other.
I don’t know if I’d call this horror in the genre sense, but since I prefer to think of horror as an experience, an emotion, I gotta say I was peeking over the edge of a blanket, tense, cringing, and biting my knuckles in avoidance of my own unvarnished reactions to this story and the people living inside it. Raven Leilani’s prose is voracious, with a full set of teeth in each sentence.
