Though she ultimately chose to pursue writing professionally, the author still paints in her spare time, often taking weeks or even months to complete a portrait. Many of the book’s most poignant moments come not from its violent sex scenes, but from Edie’s relationship to painting, which recall Leilani’s own attempts to become a visual artist. When she loses her job, she moves in with his family-including his immaculate wife Rebecca and their lonely 12-year-old daughter Akila-and, soon, her world turns upside-down. Looking for an escape, she meets Eric, an older white man in an open marriage with whom she begins an exploratory, if not questionable sexual relationship. Luster tells the story of a 23-year-old disillusioned editorial assistant named Edie whose dreams of becoming a professional painter have been dashed by her day job at a publishing house, where she survives on a meager salary and suffers quiet, quotidian racism in a “creative” environment that is in fact overwhelmingly corporate. “I truly didn’t expect this kind of response, especially because of the moment we’re in, but also because I used to work in publishing, so I had a real, practical idea of how this generally goes,” notes Leilani, a writer and artist born and raised in New York, between the Bronx and Albany. “It’s been a real whirlwind,” she says of the past few months, during which her book went from one of the season’s most anticipated new releases to one of its most-purchased volumes. Raven Leilani can’t believe she’s made the New York Times bestseller list for her debut novel, Luster.
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