Luster

Leilani's story of Edie, a broke 23-year-old black woman who gets involved with a wealthy older white couple, cuts to the quick of the often grim realities of being young and black in the US today. But it's wincingly funny, too . . . Leilani's prose mesmerises; you go with her, wherever she decides to take you . . . A remarkable portrait of the artist as a young woman. * Observer * [Leilani] is a caustic, funny and skilful storyteller, taking us deeply and convincingly inside the head of a millennial woman frantically trying to make sense of the world and her place within it. * Sunday Times * In this cutting, hot-blooded book, the entanglements that unfold are as complicated as they are heartbreaking. * New Statesman * With deadpan wit and remarkable talent, Raven Leilani effortlessly exposes the chasms between generations, faces and genders. * Vogue * A taut, sharp, funny book about being young now. It's brutal-and brilliant. -- Zadie Smith, author of <i>Swing Time</i> Luster is entirely remarkable, and the most delicious novel I've read. I couldn't get enough of Raven Leilani's starkly accurate portrayal of the nuances of being a young woman today. -- Candice Carty-Williams, author of <i>Queenie</i> Every so often, a debut novel so dazzling in its brilliance renders you unable to see the world in quite the same way for some time. Raven Leilani's Luster illuminates the world anew, like a firework . . . it is truly a work of art. * i * A darkly funny, hilariously moving debut from a stunning new voice. 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<i> The Vanishing Half</i> I was blown away by this debut novel . . . Every sentence is a treat to read, even when it is plumbing the bleakest truths of society and humanity. It is political and emotional, tender and sharp, absurd and relatable, heartbreaking and funny. The writing is packed with sharp observations of the most eccentric human behaviour, all propelled with an addictively page-turning plot. It is exquisite. -- Dolly Alderton, author of <i>Ghosts</i> Written in cool prose as brittle as glass, Luster throws down the gauntlet to a politicised contemporary moment eager to see blazingly affirmative stories of black lives in literature . . . [Edie's] voice . . . is unforgettable. More novels like this please. * Daily Mail * This wild dark comedy is absolutely the real deal . . . Leilani's live-wire sentences are a giddy joy, crafted with mischievous perfection and full of smart things to say on hot-button issues. * Mail on Sunday * You could stay in there all day, swathed in the magnificence of its language, the surprises of the sentences and their psychedelic, uncharted destinations . . . This is a book of pure fineness, exceptional. -- Diana Evans * Guardian * 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 contemporary moment. -- Katie Kitamura, author of <i>A Separation</i> Luster 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 <i>In the Dream House</i> Tension that keeps the reader hooked until the very last page . . . Leilani observes the dissatisfactions of Edie's 21st-century life with a brutal and beautiful keenness. * Harper's Bazaar * 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 has made a truly lustrous piece of art. -- Mary Gaitskill, author of <i>This Is Pleasure</i> If you like Normal P

Raven Leilani's work has been published in Granta, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and The Cut, among other publications. Leilani received her MFA from NYU and was the Axinn Foundation Writer in Residence there. Luster is her first novel.