Luster by Raven Leilani: A review

When we first meet Edie she is an assistant book editor at a publishing house in New York. She is a 23-year-old Black woman whose main focus in regard to her workplace seems to be sleeping with as many of her male colleagues as possible rather than actually engaging in doing the work. Not that these sexual adventures appear to provide her with any pleasure; instead it is evident that she seeks them out as a way of escaping from self.

It is interesting to read the descriptions of corporate life as seen through Edie's eyes. At one point, we get her take on the "diversity" offerings of her publishing house: These include "a slave narrative about a mixed-race house girl fighting for a piece of her father's estate; a slave narrative about a runaway's friendship with the white schoolteacher who selflessly teachers her how to read; a slave narrative about a tragic mulatto who raises the dead with her magic chitlin pies; a domestic drama about a Black maid who, like Schrodinger's cat, is both alive and dead." I believe I discern a pattern here.

When she is finally called into the Human Resources office and fired for sexual impropriety Edie doesn't even bother to ask for an explanation or to protest. She packs up her office and goes.

Not only has she been engaging in serial sexual encounters with multiple partners from her workplace but she is infatuated with Eric who is a much older white man in an open marriage with his wife, Rebecca. This started with an online courtship and progressed not as rapidly as Edie would have liked to a physical relationship. On one occasion, Eric even took her to his home for a romp while his wife and daughter were out.

After Edie is fired, she manages for a while with spot delivery jobs. She has a roommate to help with expenses. But then the roommate moves out and Edie still hasn't found another job. Soon she is drowning in debt.

In this state, she goes to her lover Eric's house; it's not really clear why. She enters the bedroom where she and Eric had sex and is going through his wife's closet when the said wife comes home and discovers her there. Rebecca accepts her presence calmly. She obviously knows who Edie is. In fact, she invites Edie to move into their guest room.

Her interest in Edie becomes apparent when we learn that she and Eric have a 12-year-old adopted daughter, Akila, who is Black. Akila is one of very few Black children in a White suburb and she is lonely and isolated. Rebecca seems to see Edie as a possible friend and counselor for Akila. Eric is out of the country on a business trip and the three females settle down together in a kind of spiky relationship.

Akila is not particularly accepting of any counsel from Edie, but eventually, she does accept her help with her hair. Thus, we get what for me were intriguing conversations and narratives about the care of Black hair. It is fragile in a way that the hair of White people is not and it requires handling by someone who understands its properties.

In fact, hair is an important plot point in the book. It seems to be one of the first things that Edie notices about other women. And not only does she spend time teaching Akila about the products that she needs to properly care for her hair, at one point, she also carefully dyes Rebecca's hair in response to her request. After Eric returns home, these relationships continue for a while, even as she and Eric resume their sexual adventures.

The narrative proceeds in a fairly linear fashion with the exception that we do get Edie's backstory of her upbringing which includes her father's philandering and her mother's addiction. We get to know a lot about Edie, maybe even too much, but mostly as a list of symptoms and actions rather than a fully-formed character. I freely admit I didn't like her much and I couldn't work up any empathy for her. Is that because of our generational divide or our differences in background? I couldn't say. I can only say that I fully understood the other characters' impatience with Edie as she continues her transgressions against society's norms with little consciousness of the damage that she does to others or to herself.

This is Raven Leilani's debut novel and it was highly touted by critics for its boldness and sexual frankness. It does show promise but a lot of the writing seemed repetitive and flat to me. The pace of the plot is brisk and the atmosphere of the writing is pulpy. The greatest weakness, in my opinion, was a failure to develop the characters beyond their surface appearance and actions. I would rate it at three-and-a-half stars, generously bumped up to four.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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