"Raven Leilani a écrit un livre aussi audacieux que drôle sur le fait d'être jeune aujourd'hui. C'est brutal - et c'est brillant ! " Zadie Smith Edie, jeune afro-américaine, essaie de trouver sa voie dans la vie culturelle new-yorkaise. Les retours sont toujours les mêmes : elle est douée, certes, mais pas assez. Il y a toujours quelqu'un de plus respectable, de moins singulier ou de plus " blanc " pour prendre sa place. Du côté du sexe, l'activité est bien plus foisonnante, mais sentimentalement les résultats ne sont guère plus satisfaisants.
Les choses changent lorsqu'elle rencontre Eric, un homme blanc, avec qui elle vit une aventure tumultueuse.
Alors que ses déconvenues professionnelles s'accumulent, Eddie fait la connaissance de la femme d'Eric, qui lui propose de venir habiter chez eux pour s'occuper de leur fille adoptive, une adolescente, afro-américaine, un peu perdue dans son quartier aisé, à très grande majorité blanche.
C'est le début d'une relation de plus en plus complexe entre Edie, Eric et sa famille. Jusqu'au point de rupture.
''A book of pure fineness, exceptional.'' - Diana Evans, Guardian ''A taut, sharp, funny book about being young now. It''s brutal-and brilliant.'' - Zadie Smith Winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize Shortlisted for the British Book Awards Fiction Debut of the Year Longlisted for the Women''s Prize For Fiction Edie is just trying to survive. She''s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office, is sleeping with all the wrong men, and has failed at the only thing that meant anything to her, painting. No one seems to care that she doesn''t really know what she''s doing with her life beyond looking for her next hook-up. And then she meets Eric, a white middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn''t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair. As if navigating the constantly shifting landscape of sexual and racial politics as a young black woman wasn''t already hard enough, with nowhere else left to go, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Eric''s home and family. Razor-sharp, provocatively page-turning and surprisingly tender, Luster by Raven Leilani is a painfully funny debut about what it means to be young now. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Guardian , New York Times , New Yorker , Boston Globe , Literary Hub , Vanity Fair , Los Angeles Times , Glamour , Time , Good Housekeeping , InStyle , NPR, O Magazine, Buzzfeed , Electric Literature , Town & Country , Wired , New Statesman , Vox , Shelf Awareness , i-D , BookPage and more. One of Barack Obama''s Favourite Books of 2020
Longlisted for the Women''s Prize For Fiction 2021 The Sunday Times Bestseller ''A book of pure fineness, exceptional.'' Diana Evans, Guardian ''Leilani''s live-wire sentences are a giddy joy, crafted with mischievous perfection.'' Mail on Sunday Edie is just trying to survive. She''s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office, is sleeping with all the wrong men, and has failed at the only thing that meant anything to her, painting. No one seems to care that she doesn''t really know what she''s doing with her life beyond looking for her next hook-up. And then she meets Eric, a white, middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn''t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair. As if navigating the constantly shifting landscape of sexual and racial politics as a young black woman wasn''t already hard enough, with nowhere else left to go, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Eric''s home and family. Razor sharp, provocatively page-turning and surprisingly tender, Luster by Raven Leilani is a painfully funny debut about what it means to be young now. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Guardian , New York Times , New Yorker , Boston Globe , Literary Hub , Vanity Fair , Los Angeles Times , Glamour , Time , Good Housekeeping , InStyle , NPR, O Magazine, Buzzfeed , Electric Literature , Town & Country , Wired , New Statesman , Vox , Shelf Awareness , i-D , BookPage and more. One of Barack Obama''s Favourite Books of 2020 Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award.
