Edie is just trying to survive. Shes 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 doesnt really know what shes 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 doesnt 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 wasnt already hard enough, with nowhere else left to go, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Erics home and family.
Razor sharp. provocatively page-turning and surprisingly tender,&i> Luster&/i> is a painfully funny coming-of-age story told by a fresh new voice.