Ep. 347 Luster by Raven Leilani — The Stacks Book Club (Justine Kay)
It’s The Stacks Book Club Day, and we’re diving into Luster by Raven Leilani with returning guest Justine Kay of 2 Black Girls, 1 Rose. This darkly funny and provocative novel explores race, desire, and messy human connections through the story of Edie, a young Black woman who becomes entangled with a white family. In today’s episode, we dive into the shifting power dynamics in the story, the relationship between Edie and Akilah, and share our favorite scenes from this critically acclaimed debut.
There are spoilers on today's episode.
Be sure to listen to the end of today’s episode to find out what our October book club pick will be.
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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.
Luster by Raven Leilani
It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
“Ep. 325 It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover — The Stacks Book Club (Melissa Mogollon)” (The Stacks)
Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987)
“In the Air Tonight” (Phil Collins, 1981)
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (Donald Petrie, 2003)
A Little Princess (Alfonso Cuarón, 1995)
“Jada & Will Deserve an Oscar for Their Marriage Performance” (Into It: A Vulture Podcast with Sam Sanders, Vulture)
Love Is Blind Season 7 (Netflix)
Tacky by Rax King
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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.
Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I am your host, Traci Thomas, and today is the stacks book club day. We are joined once again by co host of the two black girls one rose podcast and friend of this pod. Justine Kay to discuss our pick, Lester by Raven Leilani. Lester is a striking debut novel that dives into the messy and complicated life of Edie, a young black woman trying to figure things out in New York City who decides it's a good idea for her to enter into a relationship with a married man who is in an open relationship with his wife. The book brings us all sorts of juicy and divisive situations, bad decisions, power dynamics, racial implications and more. We talk about it all today with Justine, and there are spoilers on this episode. Be sure to listen to the end of today's episode to find out what our December book club pick will be. And a quick reminder, everything we talk about on today's episode, like books, pop culture, everything you can find that in the links, in the show notes, if you love the show and you want more of it inside access, you can head to patreon.com/the stacks and join the stacks pack, which is our bookish community and slash. Or you can sign up for my newsletter, which is at Traci thomas.substack.com both of these places support the work that I do. Both of these places give you exciting inside access to the show perks like voting on our stacky awards, our monthly virtual book club, things like bonus episodes. Also, each platform offers different perks. So you can check that out by going to patreon.com/the, stacks and going to Traci Thomas, dot sub stack.com, and I should say now you are able to gift a subscription to either sub stack or patreon to anyone in your life who loves books, who doesn't know they need this community. Give them a gift. Let them try it out. And if you're not able to right now, I get it. You can do one thing that is super impactful and helps the show that is completely free leave the show a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen, and be sure to tell a friend about it. I know that seems so basic, but when you tell a friend I listen to this podcast and I love it, they're more likely to listen to it than anything else. That's the number one way people listen to shows. How did you find this show? Someone probably told you, so, yes, please leave a review. Tell a friend. Show the show. Some love. I love you guys. Thank you. Okay, enough. That was too romantic. Now it's time for my conversation with Justine Kay about Lester by Raven Leilani. You
all right, everybody, this next book club day. I'm so excited. Friend of the pod podcast host herself, Justine Kay is back. Justine, welcome back.
Justine Kay 2:54
Oh my gosh, thanks for having me. I hope I sound okay. I'm worried you're really smart. I'm worried I'm gonna sound dumb, you're
Traci Thomas 3:00
gonna sound great. You're not dumb. You're very smart. Justine, I didn't say this, but I said it in the real intro, but just in case you skipped through that, because you're a smart podcast listener who doesn't listen to intros, Justine is the co host of the two black girls one rose podcast, where they talk about reality TV. And if you haven't heard her talk about that, you could go back to her first episode from the beginning of the month on le. Beginning Of The Month and listen. But today we are talking about luster by Raven Leilani. There will be spoilers people, just so you know, this book is the story of Edie, a black 20 something living in New York City who enters into a relationship with a man, a much older man named Eric, who is white and married and has a child and is an in an open relationship. Edie and Eric have a thing that's going fine. It's going good.
Justine Kay 4:02
It's fun times, yeah?
Traci Thomas 4:04
But then Edie does some stupid things. Yeah? She puts and and the wife gets involved. Her name is Rebecca. Rebecca Becky. Becky with the good hair, Becky is there. And the book, you know, the book takes off from there. So that's sort of the premise of luster. We always start here for book club. What did you think generally of this book?
Justine Kay 4:29
Yeah, I would like to thank you for bringing me on for this episode. I have been reading cheesy romance novels so long Traci that I am not used to this sort of writing anymore. I was so it was such a treat to read this kind of writing, yeah, and overall, I thought it was a really, really good book. I would give an eight and a half out of 10. I thought it was very well written and the story, while a. Lot. There was a lot of detail, right, which felt like it was almost like a lot of responsibility for the reader. There's a lot to remember. Yeah, I thought overall, there's so much to dissect about this character and so much to forgive about this character, but if you think about it long enough, you could forgive her for every mistake she made in this book. And not a whole lot of unlikable characters are written that way.
Traci Thomas 5:22
I love this. You're so forgiving. Wow, you are. Though, sometimes on the show there'll be like a person who behaves so badly, and you're like, I could see myself in her head. I'm like, She's literally a murderer and like a child molester. But it's not that you feel great about it. Um, okay, I like that. I like that. So I, I like this book. A lot of people going into the book were like, This is so like, this is such a like. I hated this book. It's so divisive. Like, someone told me this was an even more wild choice for me to pick than Colleen Hoover. And I was like, No, that's unhinged to say this is like feels right in my wheelhouse. Yeah. I love a novel with an unlikeable, quote, unquote unhinged female main character. If a woman is making bad choices, I want to read about it. This book is totally in my wheelhouse. I had a great time with it. I really, really liked it. I loved the questions it brought up about race and power and sort of the performance of those things about pettiness. Ooh. I mean, I don't think it's a great book, yeah, right, but it was a very good book. It is a debut. I will read whatever Raven Leilani writes next, for sure. Yeah, and I really like the storytelling. Like, there's parts in the book where she's like, going off about random shit, and then all of a sudden, she's like, and then I looked over and akilas face down underneath the police officer, and I was like, What did I miss? Like, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, she keeps that energy of Edie, which is like in first person, so we're in Edie's mind. She keeps Edie's correct energy the entire time. And so overall, this was, like a big yes for me. Yeah,
Justine Kay 7:14
I agree.
Traci Thomas 7:14
I don't I get, I sort of agree with you that, like everything bad Edie does, you could sort of forgive, but I actually don't feel like I feel like she made stupid and reckless choices, but she doesn't do anything that even needs forgiving or is harmful, in my opinion. Or am I missing something? Am I forgetting something?
Justine Kay 7:33
No, I mean sneaking into your boyfriend who's married house. Not great.
Traci Thomas 7:38
Yeah, that's not great. The door was unlocked so she can break in.
Justine Kay 7:44
Is that? Yeah? Technically, yeah, right, technically. I mean,
Traci Thomas 7:47
I guess my point being is, like, she didn't do anything, like, legally wrong.
Justine Kay 7:53
That's what I told my fiance. He was like, when does this happen? I was like, this happens all the time. This is the whole premise of Fatal Attraction. This like the girlfriend sneaking into the house, going through the wife's clothes. Happens? Bunny
Traci Thomas 8:05
boiler? Yeah, it's,
it's a type of woman, a bunny boiler. Yeah? I mean, I think that is probably her most egregious
Justine Kay 8:19
action, right? Yes, she has really specific feelings about women that I would love to chat about, really specific feelings about men. And I think those are forgivable, and maybe even like, fucking the whole office. Okay, can I curse on you? Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, fucking the whole office was a little unhinged and wild,
Traci Thomas 8:38
sure. Again, again, I guess, yeah, I mean bad decisions, uh huh. But ultimately, she's just hurting herself in all of this, like she's not hurting others. You know what? I mean? Like, I'm like, Yes, I forgive you, but Edie, you have to forgive yourself, yeah,
yeah. Maybe I love to learn to love yourself. You are enough as you are
okay? Well, yeah, let's start with her opinions about women. Okay.
Justine Kay 9:07
By the end of chapter six, I realized that she has this really great amount of empathy for men. Men's excuses are always extremely emotional. Eric is feeling like this. That's why he's an alcoholic. Eric has a black daughter, so that's why he is so far removed from Akila in their relationship. But he looks at her lovingly, like a dad, so it's okay, but with Rebecca, Rebecca's Oh like or Rebecca specifically, but also any other woman in her life, which is definitely due to her relationship with her mother. Are always plotting against her, the other girl, Black Girl at War, Aria, yep, yep, the two people who fired her, Rebecca, even the daughter at some Aquila. Aquila at some moments, she's very sensitive around her. But. She doesn't want her to, like, detonate.
Traci Thomas 10:01
Ooh, interesting,
Justine Kay 10:03
you know. Yeah,
Traci Thomas 10:04
I hadn't. I hadn't picked up on that exactly like, as articulate as you said it like I didn't. But yes, of course, you're right. Also we don't. Yeah, I'm trying to think about how she talks about Mark, the guy from the office, because she because he was plot. Remember, she thought he was plotting against her? Yes, he
Justine Kay 10:22
did. Yeah, she did. She did.
Traci Thomas 10:23
I mean, she's pretty paranoid. Yeah, she is. She is pretty paranoid. She's, did you feel like she was an unreliable narrator? Oh,
Justine Kay 10:35
oh, that's a tough question, because of how this author wrote, as you said earlier, she wrote her so true to voice, yeah? Like, I kind of always expected this. I was like, Oh, she's taking a pregnancy test. That's Traci. Yeah.
Traci Thomas 10:47
I thought she was pretty reliable, even though I didn't think she was very likable. But like, there were not many times where I was like, wait, what she said? Like, I don't believe that. There was a few moments. There's one moment where she talks about, this is like, such a nitpick, but she talks about like she's hooking up with Eric, and she's like, Oh, he slid his hand under my shirt, but she had already told us she was wearing a dress. And I was like, Wait a second, and I know that's like, not a big deal, but I it is, like, a shirt. It's not
Justine Kay 11:16
a dress. Yeah, yeah. I
Traci Thomas 11:18
think it is. But that was, like, one of the few times it was very early that I was like, Oh, is this an unreliable person? I do think this idea that she's like, paranoid around women, though, is pretty accurate, though, to her credit, all the women in the book
Justine Kay 11:35
are out to get her. They are. They are.
Traci Thomas 11:40
Maria does take her job and calls her mediocre.
Justine Kay 11:43
I know. I love that scene. I love it too. That was so good. It's such a function of white supremacy, right? It's such a crabs in the barrel moment that she has, or she's like, I can't be associated with you, even though I fully took you, even though we're fully interchangeable to these white people,
Traci Thomas 12:01
right, which? And before that, before that, what I thought was so interesting is that Edie does pick up on that, but she picks up on it differently. She thinks that Arya is out to get her job and that she doesn't like her because she was too angry too quickly in front of her. That was her understanding of what had happened. And Ari is, like, would have loved to be friends with you, but you suck at your job. And, yeah, I can't be associated with your mediocrity because I'm trying to work my way up, and you're in my way. Yep, and I just loved that. Like, Edie's right, but she's not write about the why behind the situation. And I just found that, like, really fascinating as, like, a inter intra blackness conversation, yeah,
Justine Kay 12:51
yeah. And the the two black girls who are allowed on the floor, right, which I've had that same experience at a publishing company, which is very reminiscent and nostalgic for me to read about. There was just me and one other black girl on my floor at a publishing company. It was my first job out of college. I was 23 Yeah.
Traci Thomas 13:11
Oh, is this? Is this your memoir? No,
Justine Kay 13:14
my life is, thankfully not this interesting, thank God. Oh, wait, here's
Traci Thomas 13:19
the conversation between the conversation between the two of them. I just want to read it. So this is Edie. Edie says, Please, I was a liability to you. I say, holding the smoke in the back of my throat. Well, yes, she lights another cigarette. Smiles, but not like you think. And then Edie says, you're going to tell me again what I think. And Arya says you think because you slack and express no impulse control, that you're like Black Power, sticking it to the white man or whatever, but you're just exactly what they expect. Like, I understand wanting to resist their demands, but they can be mediocre. We can't mediocre. I can't be associated with it like there is actually a brief window where they don't know to what extent you're black, and you have to go, you have to get in there, you have to get in the room. And if I have to, I will shuck and jive until the room I'm in is at the top.
Justine Kay 14:13
Oh, that shuck and jives then, yeah, chill,
Traci Thomas 14:17
yeah. I mean, it is a very specific type of black person. And I'm assuming Ari is also young, yeah? And I think that's also like an extremely young mindset, perspective of black people who maybe have, like, been in predominantly white spaces, yeah? Like publishing, but I just found that, and I feel like what's so great about the book is, like Raven Leilani does all of that in what half a page. Oh,
Justine Kay 14:45
my page. Yes. Another reason why I'm sure that we both love this book. It's only 227
Traci Thomas 14:52
pages. 227 and it's perfect. Oh,
Justine Kay 14:55
thank you, Raven. Oh, my God, I'm starting to venture into the. Kennedy Ryan sphere, I'm trying those are
Traci Thomas 15:03
longer. Oh, my God, 400 pages. Why? Yeah, so
Justine Kay 15:06
this is, this was I like
Traci Thomas 15:08
it, I like, a tight, anything under 250 because, honestly, I was like, I would have done more of this book. Yeah, yeah. Like, there are scenes I could have. I would have loved to have. I you know, anyone who's listening to this, who listens to the show a lot, will know that I love a murder. Oh, and when that gun first showed up on page 125, yeah, I thought I said, this is check offs gun. You know, there's, like, this thing where it's like, with the gun appears, that's like, yeah. And I was like, we're getting a murder. We did get a dog killing, yeah, but I thought we were getting a murder. And then it comes up again when she's like, can you put this gun in my purse? And I was like, reminder, we're getting a murder, yep. And so I was sort of hoping we were getting a murder. And then when the dog was killed, I was like, oh, juicy. And then she's, she was practicing to see if she could get away with it, and now she's gonna
Justine Kay 16:03
kill Edie, yeah? But the same thing,
Traci Thomas 16:07
yeah. But I loved, I loved the gun reveal. I just loved the way she, like, revealed little things to us in, like, a sentence here or a moment there. And I was like, This is so like, she really, I felt like, Raven Leilani thought that her readers were intelligent.
Justine Kay 16:22
Oh yeah, definitely a lot of respect for the
Traci Thomas 16:26
reader here, yeah. Okay, so let's talk about so the first half of the book is really like Edie at her job fucking Eric,
Justine Kay 16:37
open up, weird roommate,
Traci Thomas 16:40
weird apart roommate,
Eric, weird, sex stuff. Weird, weird,
Justine Kay 16:45
calling back to childhood. Every last one of these kinks.
Traci Thomas 16:49
Very weird. Yeah, won't have sex with her for a really long, long time. I'm assuming that's because he feels weird about it, because he's been married for a long time, and like, yeah, he still feels guilty about the whole thing, and maybe, like, doesn't want to go there when she brings him to her filthy
Justine Kay 17:07
Oh, my God, her party ass apartment. You know why I thought he was holding out too. They had their black adopted daughter for two years, right? This is probably the first black woman he's been around in a sexual manner ever in his life, and he's like, 50, so he's, like, kind of treading lately. Doesn't really know what to do. There's a lot of emphasis on Rebecca's body versus Edie's body, right? And him exploring those two bodies. I think he was very nervous.
Traci Thomas 17:37
But we don't get, we actually don't get a great sense of Edie's body.
Justine Kay 17:41
No, just the bra scene with her nikila shopping for bras. She said boobs. She said she talked about her boobs, I think twice during that scene. And there was one more, yeah. But then we know,
Traci Thomas 17:52
we know that she's bigger than Rebecca, but not that much bigger, because she does fit in the dress, but the dress is tight, so they're like, the same size, maybe, maybe one size bigger, but, but that is there this idea of, like, these different bodies, I mean, and the way that, the way that Edie describes Rebecca's body, lets us know that it is different than hers, because she's, Like, so fascinated by the shape of the thing, yeah,
Justine Kay 18:22
yeah. And her narrowness and her angular body, all that stuff, yes. And
Traci Thomas 18:27
her very small boobs. Yeah, she talks about our small boobs a lot, yep, something I noticed, because I too have small boobs. And I was like, You know what? Edie, leave us alone. Some of us have flat chescas Did that you have big boobs you would have, but that was the thing people used to say. They used to call us flat chescas. Flat chest goes instead of Francesca
flatchesca.
Justine Kay 18:50
Oh, my God, come on, guys, elementary
Traci Thomas 18:54
school, I guess middle school, because I don't, yeah, I think most kids are flat chested in
Justine Kay 19:01
elementary school? Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. Oh, my God.
Traci Thomas 19:05
We love it. We love this for me. Um, not complaining. Very happy. Yeah, flat chescas. Um, sorry, what were you talking oh, we're talking about Eric, yes. Okay, so, so it takes a while for them to, like, have sex, yeah, can't do it till he takes her back to his literal home, which is rule number five,
Justine Kay 19:26
yes, that Rebecca wrote down in pen, yeah, paper, which I thought was
Traci Thomas 19:31
she's not
Justine Kay 19:34
this could have been an iPhone shared note, yeah, I mean,
Traci Thomas 19:37
but she fucking knew she probably wrote it down because she knew this dude is not shit and he was gonna break them. They promptly broke every rule. The rules were no unprotected sex, even though he's quote, unquote sterile. Two, if she if Rebecca calls, he has to go. Three, Rebecca can change the rules at any time. Yep.
Justine Kay 20:02
I love how it's a worry also, and not number one, yes,
Traci Thomas 20:05
yes. She's like, Oh, this other thing, rule number four is, this is a new rule. It was a late edition. He can only see her on
Justine Kay 20:12
the week, the weekend and the week. Yeah, I haven't Yeah, only on
Traci Thomas 20:17
the weekends. Yeah. And then Rule five is she's not allowed in the house,
Justine Kay 20:21
in the house, yeah, they break all those rules, every last one of them. Yeah,
Traci Thomas 20:27
I love it. I love it. You knew they were gone. I mean, I think she sets it up by saying, like, here's how we broke all the rules. Yeah, yes, which was great too. But okay, so the power dynamic in this book between these characters, I mean, I think that's something we'll probably spend a lot we'll probably spend a lot of time on, because there's so much in here between the power dynamic. But from the beginning, Eric is in control of this situation between himself and Evie. Yep. He doesn't share very much information about her, about Rebecca. Yeah. He picks where they go. He orders the food, the drinks, everything. He decides when they're gonna have sex or not. Yep, he he after he goes to her room, he recognizes how poor she is, yeah, yeah. And he basically is just, like, feeding her, yeah, right. Like taking, like, it's basically he's exchanging food for sex, even if they're not necessarily having sex right away. Yeah, I just don't know any. I mean, it sounds so fucked up to me now as like a 38 year old, but I'm just thinking, like, Are there 23 year old young women in New York City who are saying no to
Justine Kay 21:41
this, oh, my God, I wouldn't I actually married, married, I would, yeah, but open relationship, open.
Traci Thomas 21:50
But you've got rules from the wife. So you know, the wife, at least, is like consenting to the thing, yeah, and it means that you don't have to be tied down with this old man. That's
Justine Kay 21:59
true. That's true. The only rule that would give me pause is that number three, that she can change the rules at any time. That tells me she's not comfortable with this
Traci Thomas 22:08
at all, sure, but you're 23 Yeah,
Justine Kay 22:12
right, so I actually don't know that. Yeah, yeah. So at 23
Traci Thomas 22:15
that rule just says, like, to me, like, she just like, wants to be in she wants to have control over the situation and, like, but again, I'm 23 and I'm getting to go out to nice restaurants and have, like, nice drinks and nice food. And I know this guy's married, so it's not like, I'm like, getting my hopes up and like, there's even a part where he's like, I'll leave my wife for you. And she's
Justine Kay 22:38
sort of like, God, and she's like, she's like, please don't do that.
Traci Thomas 22:43
Like, so I do feel like she has a good I feel like she has a good grasp of
Justine Kay 22:47
the relationship with Eric, yeah, yeah. I don't think
Traci Thomas 22:53
the Rebecca part, she's fully got a good
Justine Kay 22:56
grasp, no, like the marriage part of this, yeah, no, not at all, but she is. She can't wield her power until he said, I Love You by accident. And then she was like, oh, okay, I can. I gotta pull this car over.
Traci Thomas 23:12
She does say earlier that him having been off the market for so long, makes him vulnerable, and wonders if it's unethical for her to exploit that. And I think that's really interesting, because to me, she has so little power in this situation, even before, Rebecca is part of it, isn't she always part of it. I mean, even before she knows Rebecca, like, Rebecca enters the relationship, you know what? I mean, like, but just between the two of them. That's true, interesting, that she thinks like, Oh, I'm gonna exploit him, because I just didn't. I mean, maybe, I guess maybe she is exploiting him for these nice dinners, yeah, for
Justine Kay 23:51
nice dinners, for companionship, for validation that he's attractive. I think that's why a lot of men go out with, like, younger women, to make sure they, like, still got it, especially ones that aren't like formal sugar daddies. They want a lot of validation in their manhood and their masculinity when they're dealing with younger women, I think too, even the way that Raven portrays Rebecca's name and how regular it is and how she cannot find this woman, she can't find her online, and the frustration of her not being able to find her online, yeah, really, that's when Edie realizes that her power is diminishing. She's like, Wait, I don't have a handle on the situation at all.
Traci Thomas 24:35
Yeah, interesting, interesting. I don't think that Edie ever realizes her power. I don't really. She never acknowledges that to us. She never acknowledges like, she never says, like, this thing is out of control. Oh, yeah, no. Like. She never really has a moment of like, reflection on like she's just living her life.
Speaker 2 24:59
Life, yep, day by day, yeah. And I think, like,
Traci Thomas 25:04
I think what's really, really smart about this book is that, and I've heard from some people, this is one of the complaints with the book, is that the book starts in one place and sort of ends up in a totally different place. And, like, the relationship with Eric sort of just like, fizzles out and disappears. But I thought that was, like, really true to life, because I, I mean, just like, when I think of friends, like, there's people that I meet for one reason, and then I go to a party with them, and then I meet someone else, and I'm like, Oh, you're actually my friend, and I don't ever talk to that other person anymore. Or like, like, I sort of didn't, I didn't mind that, because it felt, it felt like Rebecca sort of took control of the situation and, like, Rule three, the wife can change the rules. Yeah,
Justine Kay 25:43
she very much does. And she does, yeah, all the time. Informally, changes the rules pretty right, frequently,
Traci Thomas 25:51
right? And, like, pretty drastically, I mean, the first time. So let's get to the scene where Rebecca and Edie first interact, because that is the best scene in the book. You think, I mean that in the party, yeah, the party, like, I think of that whole thing as one scene, because she never leaves the house. So in my head, that's all one scene. But after Edie goes to the house with Eric, and they have sex, finally, and Eric says he loves her after she calls him daddy. Oh, yikes. Oh, my God, it's such good writing. It's so smart. Oh, my God, it's so good. Edie unhinged, Edie decides to go back to the house. Like, just cause, is she going for a reason? No, she's just going
Justine Kay 26:46
to me. She just filled in the woman who goes to go through the clothes of the wife, yeah? But
Traci Thomas 26:53
there's no, she's not going, like, oh, I left my shoe, or snowing. Like she's just going,
Justine Kay 26:56
No, she left her dignity. Girl,
she's looking for it.
Traci Thomas 27:03
So she goes to the House. The door is conveniently open. No one's home. She thinks. She goes inside, straight to the bedroom, straight to the closet. Pause all over Rebecca's clothes, just a little sifting through, yep, dun, dun, dun. She turns around. Guess who's there? Rebecca. They stare at each other for a second, yep. Then Edie runs out of the house, yeah. Rebecca chases her out of the house, yeah, and falls down outside in public, in front of her neighbors on the cul de sac. Oh,
Justine Kay 27:44
my God, the drama mortifying. Yeah, that's fucking that's crazy.
Traci Thomas 27:52
I would argue that outside of this one moment in the entire book, Rebecca is in control of power, but this first initial interaction just fucking embarrassing as shit. It's
Justine Kay 28:09
so embarrassing even Becca thinking about Rebecca's obsession with fitness and obsession with her body, to think that she could not get her when she got outside that house. Oh So metaphorical to her marriage, to her marriages. Run wild. Girl, yeah, get
Traci Thomas 28:25
a divorce. Sweetheart, get a divorce. Get a divorce. Edie turns back around because
Justine Kay 28:34
now she feels bad. Now she engages. Yeah, biggest mistake of the book I know, keep
Traci Thomas 28:40
running. Get your ass to New Jersey Transit. Girl, yep, get on a train. Yep, get yourself on Penn Station, yep, Rebecca's like, I just, I just, I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanted to get a better look at you
Justine Kay 28:55
and why he would choose you. Yeah,
Traci Thomas 28:58
there's some subtext, uh huh.
Justine Kay 29:04
She's like, Oh, this is what he really wants. Okay, yep.
Traci Thomas 29:08
Okay, if you are Rebecca, you're you, but you're Rebecca, uh huh, and you're in an open relationship, right? And your partner chooses someone who physically looks totally different from you. Yeah, different race, different body type, younger or much older. What are you thinking
Justine Kay 29:29
that I have to leave the marriage? I gotta go. I don't even think this about, like, celebrity crushes. I get, like, annoyed if it's What do you mean the opposite, like, I can list all of my sister wives of my fiance, you know what? I mean, his like, hall passes and everything. Yeah, they're all black girls with big asses, like, and that is also me, so it's fine, huh? Yeah. So
Traci Thomas 29:54
you're let you'd be more upset if they were different from you than if they were the same, for sure.
Justine Kay 29:59
Sure, yeah. Why? Um,
because I'm really insecure. I have a lot of body insecurity. So I would be like, Damn, he really does like this better. Oh, I see, I see, yeah,
Traci Thomas 30:12
I see, yeah, I think I'm I think I would be okay with it, yeah, because I'm like, Oh, well, I can never be that. Yeah. He's trying out a different flavor. Like, if someone, like, would look like me, I would be like, Oh, she's the hotter version of me. So it's like, a different kind of I would be like, Oh, it's, it's like, a fetish or something. And like, just into like, girls that look like me, but, like, I'm not as pretty as Tessa Thompson or whatever. You know, like, I don't know why she popped into my head.
Justine Kay 30:41
I think because she's after this, and she sort of was my type, yes, yeah,
Traci Thomas 30:45
yeah. So I feel like I would I. So I feel like, if I'm Rebecca, while I might be like, surprised, yeah, I would probably be like, well, that's fine. I'm not gonna be that, yeah. But I think it's also different, if you're a white woman, and he's picked a younger black woman, but, you know, I can't relate to that,
Justine Kay 31:07
and you just adopted a black daughter who you don't know how to do her hair by choice, that would
Traci Thomas 31:11
be, see, that would be weird, because when the daughter comes up, I think the note that I took is Eric's a creep, yeah?
Justine Kay 31:18
Freaking out. He's a freak, yeah, yeah. It's, it's,
Traci Thomas 31:22
it's creepy, yep. And there's clearly some weird daddy thing, because a he comes after she says, Daddy, this daughter. He's picked the someone who's like the daughter. But there's also a scene where Rebecca in an ED are doing the cadaver thing the first time, when she drops the food off and has lobster bisque in her shoe. Oh my gosh. He says something about her dad being dead. And Rebecca's like, does Eric know about that? Yeah. She's like, No. And she's like, Oh, okay, that's good. He doesn't need to know. Yeah.
Justine Kay 31:50
He doesn't need to know. Yeah. Keep it for yourself. She said,
Traci Thomas 31:53
Yeah. So he clearly has daddy things, yes,
Justine Kay 31:57
uh, Savior things, perhaps, maybe I don't know exactly they don't go into Eric's past, which I'm very thankful for. I don't need to know any more about Eric than I already do.
Traci Thomas 32:08
Yeah? I feel like I know what I know. Yeah, yeah. We know. Do we know about Rebecca's dad? No, no, no, we don't know a lot about the whites back stories. No,
Justine Kay 32:19
we don't. We don't. She fits into such a type of human being that I'm so familiar with, so I'd never bothered to even be curious about her. Yeah, wait, we're
Traci Thomas 32:28
gonna take a quick break, and then we're gonna talk about this type of human being. Okay, we're back. We're here to talk about the specific kind of white ladies, like Rebecca, middle name, Moon,
Justine Kay 32:45
Moon, Becky moon.
Traci Thomas 32:49
It's unfathomable. It is, but it is a specific kind of white lady. So it
Justine Kay 32:54
is, yeah, yeah. I know this white lady. I went to private school for a very long time. I'm from fifth grade to 12th grade. I know that this lady uses the tennis courts to like keep an eye on her kids. She has eyes in the back of her head. She has eyes everywhere. But she also does whatever the F she wants to do, whenever she wants to do it. She has a staff of people who feel so guilty for dropping any ball on her dime, that she is so controlling of every situation that she's in, but appears as if she is like welcoming a hostess a team mother will make the pulled pork sandwiches for the night before the game. Like that type of woman. I know this woman,
Speaker 2 33:42
not a pulled pork sandwich. I thought it was like an orange slice. I've been momming Wrong. Fuck. I've been bringing orange Oh, no, girl, you gotta
Justine Kay 33:50
make the whole pasta dinner before the
Traci Thomas 33:53
game for a night for a 9am soccer match.
Justine Kay 33:56
Uh huh, yeah. They
Traci Thomas 33:57
need the Oh, the night cards before. Oh, I was thinking, like, snack at the game. Oh, it's like, I've been bringing pirates booty and oranges. I'm okay now Thank you. She is also so petty,
Speaker 2 34:18
petty Spanish, so cruel, yeah, yeah, deeply cruel. Rebecca,
Traci Thomas 34:25
I mean, obviously the first bit of cruelty is her inviting
Justine Kay 34:30
her to stay for dinner, I know, and giving her the dress, and
Traci Thomas 34:34
then giving her the dress, yeah, dress that's too tight restricts her body, yep. But she invited her to stay for dinner. That is extremely different than inviting her to stay for your
Justine Kay 34:45
anniversary party with your friends, yeah, yeah,
Traci Thomas 34:50
where you're gonna sing an acapella version of in the air at night. Michael Collins,
Justine Kay 34:54
oh, why Becky? No,
Traci Thomas 34:57
you've seen how to lose a guy in 10 days. Yeah, I have Yeah. It reminds me of the scene where, like, Andy starts singing, you're so vain, yes,
Justine Kay 35:06
oh my god. And then she does all those ad libs,
Traci Thomas 35:11
yeah, oh yeah.
It is, like, it would be a scene in something where people are wasted, and it happens, but as far as I can tell, she's stone cold sober because they're not serving alcohol at the party, which right notices, yeah, because Eric, because Eric doesn't, because Eric doesn't drink, Eric's sober. Big Air quotes. That's that dinner party, that anniversary party.
Justine Kay 35:39
I also love how petty Edie can be in her descriptions. I will say, Yeah, my favorite is she is, I suppose, sexy in the way a triangle can be sexy.
Traci Thomas 35:59
I guess a triangle. I mean, I guess, I think a triangle with three different sides, like one
really long one and one sort of short one. Yeah. She says, isosceles, yeah, yeah. There's
Justine Kay 36:12
different types of triangles. Maybe, maybe I
Traci Thomas 36:15
only know two. I know there's a third, but I can't think of the name. There's equilateral isosceles. Oh, scalene, Whoa, did I pull that out? I didn't even Google that people. I gotta double check though, see,
Justine Kay 36:27
I was trying this podcast girl, scalene pocket.
Traci Thomas 36:30
Oh, okay. Scalene is the kind I like. Scalenes got three different I saw solely has two, yeah, two different legs, yeah. Okay. I did have to go without Google that part, but I did come up with scalene, yeah, nope. Yeah, I know people at home were probably in their car, whatever, like, listening, being like, scaling, you dumb bitch, scaling. And then I said it, and they were like, because sometimes I get DMS when people are listening to the show, or they'll answer something I eventually get to but I can't figure like I got a message. Someone was like, it's a little princess from our last conversation. Yeah. And then they were like, Oh, you figured it out. It's like I did, yeah, but scaling guys, I got that without googling. Yes, no, saying someone is sexy in the way that a triangle can be sexy, that
Justine Kay 37:12
is shade. I love it.
Traci Thomas 37:15
But is a is triangle the sexiest shape?
Justine Kay 37:19
Definitely not. No, what is the sexiest shape in my head? A circle? Oh, no.
Why? What do you say? Circle
Traci Thomas 37:30
is a happy shape. Circle just, I'm perfect. Look at me. I'm a
Justine Kay 37:38
circle. Yeah, mold it can move. What do you think, though? Uh,
Traci Thomas 37:42
no, a circle cannot a circle is a circle. It cannot mold and move. It has to be equal distant from the center all the way around. It can bounce, it can roll, but it cannot change. Then it becomes like an oval or something. Oh, okay, okay, okay, um, I maybe triangle is the sexiest maybe, maybe a trapezoid.
Justine Kay 38:03
Yeah, a trapezoid is a good one. A Traci,
Traci Thomas 38:06
definitely not a square, definitely not a rectangle. No, I think when you start getting into like, hexagons, pentagons, there's too many sides for me. I think too much shape.
Justine Kay 38:15
I was gonna say rhombus, too much.
Traci Thomas 38:17
Yeah, well, rhombus is a trapezoid. Technically, rhombus is any four sided shape. And then there's different rules. So, like, a square is a rhombus, right? A rectangle is a rhombus, trapezoid is a rhombus. A diamond is, like a four sided that's, you know? Anyways, I think I'm gonna go with Triangle, triangle specifically, scaling really one long side, on top, a short height and then a medium width. I don't know, I'm sort of into it
Justine Kay 38:48
nice, such a Rebecca triangle.
Traci Thomas 38:50
I guess I'm into Rebecca. Rebecca is sort of my type. I guess, I don't know, sort of love this triangular woman.
Justine Kay 38:59
This is not where I thought today's episode would go, um,
Traci Thomas 39:05
okay, on the flips on the Okay. Wait, we I have to keep telling the story of this book, because I keep getting distracted. Someone talk more about these people so Rebecca cruel. She goes to his party, whatever. Eric takes Edie home the night of the anniversary. And Rebecca's like, what? It's our anniversary? And he's like, Yeah, bitch, you did this. I'm gonna drive her home. I'm
Justine Kay 39:29
gonna drive her home. You sang Phil Collins in front of anybody? Yeah? Gotta go acapella.
Traci Thomas 39:33
Yeah, that song needs the drums. It's crucial. You can't just fucking do in the air. At
Justine Kay 39:44
night, you need the air and we need the drum down, okay?
And girl, you have a saying any other time in this book, I know you're not a singer. Oh, yeah,
Traci Thomas 39:55
we know she's not a singer. So he takes her home. They hook up AGGRESSIVELY IN THE. Hard because he says, I want to hit you. And she says, do it. He hits her twice, hard as fuck. This is really the twist of the entire This is where the book you thought so. Not that like, I feel like this is the turning point in the book. After this scene, the whole shit shifts, yeah, up until this scene, the book is one thing, yeah, he hits her hard. She goes to work the next day and gets fired. Like, this is the scene in between, like that delineates, for me, the beginning of the book and the rest of the book. Okay, I don't mean it's a surprise, like, I didn't see it coming. Obviously, we knew there's a lot of physical violence. And, yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of physical violence. And just, like, not even just, like, hitting and pushing, but also Rebecca's job, she, she does autopsies on on veterans. Like, that's a really violent you have to use a sign. You have to cut, like, it's like, it's a lot of like, really intimate, physical, yeah, and gruesome stuff going on throughout this book, yeah? Um, after that, Edie gets fired. She starts to do like, a delivery app to deliver food. She delivers some lobster bisque and a saw to, you guessed it, Rebecca at work, and then Rebecca's, like, takes her back to the house. Yeah. Well, Eric's out of town for like, a week, yep. And
Justine Kay 41:35
Edie moves in. Edie moves in, yeah, yeah. I think what interested me so much about that exact delineation you were talking about is that Edie is constantly looking for physical affirmations that she is on this earth. I feel like she's constantly, kind of like floating around, and that's why her decisions are so bad, because she doesn't really like live here, she really is like a figment of an imagination or an idea that she thinks she's she was a bad idea right between her parents, and so she's trying to constantly figure out, am I here or not? And Eric gave her the validation that she is here, so much so that she moves in to his house and raises his daughter well, and
Traci Thomas 42:21
Rebecca gives her that validation too. I mean, Rebecca's like, meanness towards her and curiosity about her, but also the thing that's so interesting about Rebecca, and I think, like, especially in light of the election, and, like, some of the conversations I'm seeing online around white women, in addition to her cruelty, she is generous. Yes,
Justine Kay 42:48
yeah,
Traci Thomas 42:51
it is. It is generous, even if it is manipulative. Generosity, right? Like, I don't think it's Generosity without strings, but she is, we think giving Edie an allowance money. She does let her live in her house. Yeah,
Justine Kay 43:08
she gives her soap and toothbrushes and clothes.
Traci Thomas 43:11
And I think, like my, my read of it is like she's trying to assuage some sort of white guilt.
Justine Kay 43:19
Yeah, white guilt came up a lot. White girl,
Traci Thomas 43:22
I also think she's, to me, she feels like one of those people that when she does something mean, she just has to overcorrect and, like, fix it, yep, yep, yep. Like, the cruelty is tied to the generosity in a lot of
Justine Kay 43:35
ways. For sure, yeah, because she doesn't want karma, real karma, to come back and get her. Yeah.
Traci Thomas 43:39
It's like, transactional, like she gets off on being mean, and she also gets off on like, being the savior, like doing the right thing, you know, being a good white person. And I mean, this will surprise nobody. Unfortunately, Rebecca is my favorite character in the book. What
Justine Kay 43:58
are you serious?
Traci Thomas 44:00
I'm not saying I like her. Yeah, I'm the most interested in her every time she is on the page. I was excited, like, I loved reading this really fucked up lady. Like, I just Eric was meant to me, and I liked Edie a lot, but I felt like E like, I think because, also because the book is in first person, we get to see Rebecca more clearly than we get to see Edie, because Edie's not always reflecting on herself. So like, just like in, in the way that the book works, Rebecca is who we're seeing. And I'm only talking about the main three. I'm not talking about a key because I don't think it's really fair to make her like a favorite character, because she's so peripheral, she's in everything, but she's so peripheral to the book.
Justine Kay 44:47
Yeah, okay, okay, because I was gonna say she's my favorite. Um, that's
Traci Thomas 44:51
nice, because you're nice. And I like a crazy bitch. I love a I love a crazy woman. I like, yeah, I. We're not supposed to call women crazy. But,
Justine Kay 45:01
well, no, these
Speaker 2 45:02
are crazy. Call Rebecca. Yeah, these people are crazy, for sure. There's no other words for her. Yeah.
Justine Kay 45:07
I was really interested in Rebecca's mom's story. Like, who was that person raised by? Especially a person who would adopt a child without wanting to be a mother in their heart of hearts, and like
Traci Thomas 45:19
an older child. They adopt an older, 10 year old, or almost 11 year old,
Justine Kay 45:24
and she's doing all the things, taking her karate class, she's taking on a Comic Con. She's like, doing all the things, but she's also low key, abusing her, trying to go on a run to her and count her calories,
Traci Thomas 45:36
and not doing her hair,
Justine Kay 45:38
not doing her hair, which is the first cardinal sin. Rebecca, no, this
Traci Thomas 45:44
is a this. Listen, I'm a mixed child. Uh huh. I have a white mother, right? I am lucky, because my white mother has curly hair. Oh, okay. And also, my hair is not I have, like, mixed hair, yeah? So it is similar to my mother's hair, right? Yeah, but I know a lot of kids with Caucasian mothers who a lot of black kids with Caucasian mothers who in that hair problem. Well, I mean, in my day, back in my day, that's different.
Justine Kay 46:20
When I see people. I mean, I we all right as black women whose hair grows up, whose hair grows in different crawl patterns, whose hair grows into the we all learn on the internet. Girl, get on the internet and learn how to do somebody's hair. What's wrong with you? Yeah. Oh god. It makes me, yeah, angry.
Traci Thomas 46:37
It is a very clear indication to me if a white woman has or or a white I guess white men have have black children and their hair looks bad. Those white parents don't know black people. They don't have black friends? Nope, they have none. Because they might know a black person, but that person is not their friend, because if that person was their friend, they would protect that child's hair.
Justine Kay 47:09
Yes, yes. And they don't think that child deserves to look beautiful. They don't know how it's even possible. They don't know the road to beauty for that child's hair.
Traci Thomas 47:20
But then again, on the flip side, I do see white people whose kids hair looks bad. Just they have white kids, and I'm just like, well, what's your excuse here?
Justine Kay 47:30
Yeah, well, they just don't care, I guess.
Traci Thomas 47:33
I guess they don't care about hair, about looking presentable. I don't know. Yeah, as my dad used to call children who looked like that. They used to, used to call them ragamuffins. Yeah, that's accurate. Yeah, a little ragamuffin. And they gotta kill out here looking like a ragamuffin. God,
Justine Kay 47:51
like a ragamuffin with
Traci Thomas 47:54
falling out.
Justine Kay 47:56
Her hair is falling out. She did a relaxer by accident, which is a lot of and I love how she did the relaxer by accident, and Edie then goes immediately into her I did a relaxer by accident story. So many black women have that story.
Traci Thomas 48:12
I mean, I really did love the relationship between Akila and and Edie, especially by the end, because I do think that, like it does,
it gives Edie
a sympathetic, yes, a sympathetic relationship, because she doesn't have any
Justine Kay 48:32
in the book, right? Maybe that's why I like Aquila so much, because she makes Edie likable.
Traci Thomas 48:37
Yeah, she does. She helps. She helps Edie in the eyes of the viewer or reader, but also I like it, because I feel like, I feel like Edie is while I like her, she she is so self absorbed, and it's like the one time she sees outside of herself is like this child,
Justine Kay 49:03
yes, that's true. That's true. And even in that she has to see herself in the child so many times in order to get to that level of generosity and gratitude for her. Yeah.
Traci Thomas 49:15
How about the first fucking time we see that kid? Oh, my God, she was I was like, because I we don't know that he has kids, but I just assumed he has kids, and it was gonna be like, these, like, two little bitchy ass white kids, and they're like, there's a black child here. I was like, the nanny brought their child to the party. Like, I was like, Who's this who's this black child? Who's
Justine Kay 49:38
this child? I just knew it was ghost. Yeah, it was in. It
Traci Thomas 49:42
was haunting her.
Justine Kay 49:43
It was haunting her. It
Traci Thomas 49:44
was the ghost of Edie past. Yeah. Okay, so after Edie moves in, Eric comes home a day early, oh, oh, and we discover that Rebecca into like, mosh pits again, more violent. Yes, yeah, physical violence every there's a violence kink in this book for everybody, for sure,
Justine Kay 50:06
and it also makes her feel present. I think that, yeah, like we're
Traci Thomas 50:10
talking about that same I mean, I think that Edie and Rebecca have a lot, a lot in common. There are very similar in their what, what they like, what they need. I think that's why they end up having this, like, weirdly intimate relationship, very
Justine Kay 50:24
comfortable.
Traci Thomas 50:26
Did okay? Did I read this wrong? Why did I think that Edie and Rebecca hooked up? Is it their scene? Not at the end with the painting, but no scene where they're like, in the kitchen, and it's like, yep, they like, run her fingers through her hair, and then it sort of like ends the chapter or the section, yeah? And I thought they were fucking Yeah, but maybe not. I thought so
Justine Kay 50:47
too. I thought there's no way that the writer would not go into what Rebecca finds pleasurable. There's no way she would deny us of that Raven, you wouldn't do that to us, right? That's why I would think so. So I think maybe she almost got there, but again, the physical touch, just reminding everybody that they're here on this earth and not in their own head, making these decisions for the plot, thinking that, right, the Broadway play of their life, right?
Traci Thomas 51:15
Right? People are doing
Justine Kay 51:19
but I thought so too. I know exactly what you're
Traci Thomas 51:20
talking about. I You're right. I would have loved to see a scene where Rebecca is like,
Justine Kay 51:24
Oh, my God, with another woman King, another woman. I would love, yeah,
Traci Thomas 51:28
yeah. Or even, like, when she sees into Rebecca and Eric having sex, ooh, if, like, that was actually a pleasurable scene for one of them, specifically Rebecca, like that would have been interesting. Edie sneaking around, painting everything I
Justine Kay 51:46
know, thinking she's creeped too, thanks.
Traci Thomas 51:49
In a different way, she's like, creepy. It's giving Creepy Crawlers. So yes, Eric comes back. He does a full, full silent treatment for like, a lot of pages, for, like, let's see, for like, 25 pages, um, then they start hooking up again. Yeah, wait, what? What was, what prompts them to start hooking up again, looking again. She
Justine Kay 52:14
walks into the bathroom, and he's in there shaving and listening to the Oh,
Traci Thomas 52:18
right downstairs, and his, like, man's lair. That's right, that's right. He's listening to his, like, weird records that he thinks he's saving, but they're all warmed anyways, right? Yeah, you're such a loser.
Justine Kay 52:27
I know he's such a loser. He thinks he's so cool because he likes disco.
Traci Thomas 52:31
Do you know who? You know who he sort of reminds me of. This is, like, a very this is my favorite loser. I hate him. Oh, he sort of is giving Drake. He's sort of giving
white, yes, giving abreast.
That's correct. Like he thinks he's like, so cool and so hot and like, can handle his liquor so good. Not that, not that Drake. I don't know anything about Drake, but just like, the whole thing, he thinks he's so fucking such hot shit. Yeah. And meanwhile, your little girlfriend and your wife are, like, weirdly, besties, and like, your records are warped. You can't get it up, yeah? Like, there's just like, so it's just like, it's giving loser. And when I think loser. I think Drake. Yeah, that's accurate. I
Justine Kay 53:22
love that. He's your favorite loser. That's such a good
Traci Thomas 53:24
he's my, maybe not favorite. I mean, he's like, my like, when he's like, if I open the dictionary to loser, that's what I see as Drake. And I just want to go on record again, because I've been calling a Drake a loser long before. Ken Drake. Oh, I, I was on, I was on Sam Sanders Show last fall screaming about what a loser Drake is. Like, this guy's such a dork, what a loser. Because I also think calling someone a loser is like, such an extremely like, pointed insult. It is like calling someone an asshole. Like, sure, everyone's an asshole, loser.
You're a loser.
You're a virgin who can't drive. It's very that, um, okay, so they start hooking up again. Then then Rebecca, like, maybe catches them a little bit, or, like, sort of knows. So then they start going like hotels and stuff dangerous.
And then this bitch gets pregnant. She
Justine Kay 54:25
sure does. She's reckless.
Traci Thomas 54:28
He told her he was sterile. Oh, yeah, that's true. He said, I'm sterile. That's why they adopted the kid, because I couldn't get pregnant. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if that's a lie or it's just, you know, it act like sometimes people think they can't get pregnant and they can. I don't, I don't know. I didn't read it necessarily as like a malicious lie, but also I didn't read it as an actual accident. So somewhere in between, yeah,
Justine Kay 54:53
yeah. Then
Traci Thomas 54:54
they're fucking, and then it almost dies. He comes in spots at the hotel, and that's really the end of things for Eric. He does. He is revived. But Eric, it is over. It's over. We never really see Eric again for the last 35 pages, we see him puking at Comic Con because he's done shrooms, yeah, but he becomes a nothing after this scene. Oh, I found the note on page 190 is where I thought that Rebecca and Eric Eddie Edie have sex because I wrote, I've been waiting for this. Edie and Rebecca Bucha and finally, my notes are so crazy. Okay, here's what it is. I look at her face and see her irritation, but underneath it something curious and more fixed, and I wrap my arms around her and regret it, until she reciprocates, which she takes her time to do her body shockingly hard as she pulls me in and runs her fingers through my hair, all of her ingredients, the formalin and ash and under eye cream clarified at close range. Blackout the next day is when she goes to the days in with Eric. He passed out at a days in, a days in, and then I and then also after this is when Rebecca is like, you need to go, yeah, because I guess maybe they don't, maybe her Rebecca don't hook up, but clearly Rebecca wants to, and she thinks that she's, like, won the battle, because clearly there's a battle between Rebecca and Eric for Edie, yeah, yeah. And so I think she thinks, Oh, I did it. And then they're having sex at days in and he merely dies. And she realizes that no, no. And then this is where maybe Edie has the power the most control playing them,
Justine Kay 56:48
yeah, especially the influence that she has at this point over their daughter. Yeah, because officially, now she knows more about their daughter than they do, right?
Traci Thomas 56:57
And she's connected with her, okay, yeah, that's good. So I guess there's, like, one way to read this where it's like Edie has all the power, and then there's another way to read it where she has none, yeah, like, she doesn't have a home, she doesn't have a job. She's living with these people. She is sort of at the whims of these people, but as we find out later, once Rebecca kicks her out, she is able to find a home and a job. So it's not like she's unemployable or un home houseable.
Justine Kay 57:21
Homelessness
bothers her and I don't think unemployment bothers her that much.
Traci Thomas 57:27
No, well, she clearly found she found a job in a house pretty easily, working for these white people, yep, as their babysitter, sex object and companion. Yeah, she's a sex worker, babysitter and like, best friend, all one, yeah, she gets a unspecified allowance. Uh huh, artist, too. Why the fuck does Rebecca shoot the dog? Oh,
Justine Kay 57:51
my God, I think the dog, I guess, is a reminder that, like, there's stuff going on around her that's out of her control, because she's always saying that damn dog, I can't stand the dog. The dog's always barking. No one else hears a dog barking, but she hears his dog barking, but the dog also is this old lady who's like peeking through the windows, always staring at them. So maybe she hates that old lady. Okay, I
Traci Thomas 58:19
have a metaphor.
Justine Kay 58:20
Oh,
Traci Thomas 58:21
tell me what if Edie is the dog and Rebecca is the old lady.
Justine Kay 58:30
Oh, my God, probably looking at Eric across the way.
Traci Thomas 58:35
Rebecca's always peeking around, poking her head in, looking around. It's like grown up. Rebecca is this old lady, and Edie is the dog, and Rebecca fucking hates Edie kills the dog.
Justine Kay 58:51
Oh, my God, that is so accurate. That is so good.
Traci Thomas 58:56
I mean, that's how I see it. There might be a better answer. But I sort of also like the idea that, no, I love it, that the neighbor is just another version of Rebecca.
Justine Kay 59:06
Yeah, she fully that's exactly where Becca is gonna turn into and then
Traci Thomas 59:10
they fucking call the police for like, a week on the street over a dead dog. Because what are they doing here?
Justine Kay 59:16
Because the police have nothing to do,
Traci Thomas 59:18
nothing to do. You live in New Jersey. I
Justine Kay 59:22
sure do. I know your neighborhood, exactly what they're talking about, too. It is exactly what it's like. We had a domestic violence situation. I lived in Essex County too, but a domestic violence situation upstairs from our apartment one apartment ago, me and my family and the police would come in, like, 30 seconds, yeah, because they had nothing to do not New York. No, in New York, you got to call 311, they don't come to the next day, right? You got to log in online. It's the whole thing.
Traci Thomas 59:52
Gotta get in line, yeah? Gotta call Eric Adams the
Justine Kay 59:58
lounge. Yeah. I.
Traci Thomas 1:00:00
Yeah, okay, so the dog is killed. We don't know who did it, but we know who did it. We know he did it. Goes, Rebecca, yeah. We know it was gun girl, but then the police come and harass the two black girls and the doorstep of the home, yep. And I, what I think is interesting about this book is it came out in 2020, and so it came into a world that was very interested in this scene, but it was written before, yeah, and like, I don't know to me that part of the book felt the most contrived and like, the least interesting. Yes, definitely. I think she'd already said all of that, yeah, without having to actually give us the scene. Yes,
Justine Kay 1:00:45
I thought so too. There was a moment right after she got fired on page 84 where she says that she thinks of her parents, not because she misses them, but because sometimes you see a black person above the age of 50 walking down the street, and you just know, they've been through some shit, you know, they said thank you as they bled, and that despite the roaches and instant oatmeal, you are still luckier than they have ever been. I thought that was more than enough for me.
Traci Thomas 1:01:15
Yeah, well, and that that section is in contrast to what she says later about Eric when they're like, out to dinner or whatever, and she's like, she hates him. I gotta find it, because it's one of my it's one of my favorite bits in the whole one of my favorite little bits in the whole book about, like, older men. Oh, oh, it's on two eight, um, she's talking about Eric, and she says, So sure, an older man is a wonder because he has paid 38 years of Con Ed bills and suffered food poisoning and seen the climate reports and still not killed himself. But somehow, after being a woman for 23 years, after the ovarian torsion and student loans and newfangled Nazis and button downs. I too, am still alive, and actually, this is the more remarkable feat. Instead, I let myself be awed by his middling command of the wine list. Yep. I just loved that read, yeah? Like,
Justine Kay 1:02:13
I know. Yeah. I love that read too. Yeah. Of him just being so average,
Traci Thomas 1:02:18
yeah. Okay, so we have to do the end of the book, because we're like so out of time, okay, right? Like the day before she's supposed to get case out of the house, this scene with the cops happen. They physically assault both the women, or the girl and the woman the next day, or that night, Rebecca sleeps in her room. She wakes up, she's miscarrying this baby, they go to the hospital. Rebecca pays for everything. Knows her birthday, like, knows everything about her, about her, yeah, and it is this real moment of like, white woman in action. Then Edie wears a diaper for a while because she's bleeding a lot, but
Justine Kay 1:03:04
she wants to cover this up, this Rebecca beauty.
Traci Thomas 1:03:07
She she goes up, she gets out, Yep, she's done. She gets a job. She gets an apartment. Yep, the end, yeah. What do you make of the ending?
Justine Kay 1:03:18
Oh, my God, I, I, oh, well. And she also paints
Traci Thomas 1:03:22
Rebecca. Oh, right, right. Rebecca gets nude, and she nude her Yeah, in the new apartment
Justine Kay 1:03:28
that Rebecca helped her move into, which is also wild. I loved the ending. I loved that Eric had nothing to do with it, as you said. And I love that it got back to her being an artist, because that also gives her the permission to be unhinged. I thought, you know, she was at the very last moment before she got put down for this procedure. She said, No, I'm an artist. And she finally, like, lived in her truth. She was living her truth in Newark or wherever the hell she was living. That was great.
What about you?
Traci Thomas 1:03:59
I like the ending. I think like, because the book built up so much, I was sort of hoping for a more explosive ending and a less, sort of like, fizzle ending. But I also think it feels right, because that's how life is, like, you live this crazy story, and then it's like, yeah, I got a new apartment, and I never saw those people again. Yes, yes. And like, and like, in 10 years, it'll be like, oh. And then Akilah, like, friended me on Facebook, which was so weird, because I'm not even on Facebook anymore. Yeah, right. Like, it's like, yep. So I did sort of like that part, because it does end up feeling like a story you would tell, like at brunch to your friends. Like, did I ever tell you guys about the white people I lived with for a month?
So it started with
phone sex with dad, and it ended with me miscarrying his baby, his baby in bed with the mom. Yeah. Like, what a story, or with the wife. So I did. I did sort of like that. I mean, I think, like, the thing that this book does that's really cool is it is. Satire. It is sort of a domestic thriller. It is, you know, sort of like a psychological thriller. Like there's like, a lot of genre happening within the book that I think that, like Raven Leilani is playing with that I really liked, and it leaves you sort of feeling a little bit like disheveled, in a way which I would assume is, like, you're sort of like, what did I just read? Which is how I assume that all of those characters would feel that night, that first night a month that, yeah, 80 is gone, out of the house, or whatever. Like, what the fuck? And you know, Rebecca is like, are you done with your little open marriage thing? Or, yeah, right, like she comes home and she's like, Okay, I dropped her off like, Uh huh. Are you done? Uh huh? Are we done? Did we do? We do your experiment? Or what? Yep, yep. So I guess, I guess I did. Like, the ending. The last thing we have to talk about, what we always talk about, is the title and the cover. The book is called luster. The title is sort of this, like, side close up of a woman's shoulder back and then a black woman with curly hair like a fro, kind of shiny.
Justine Kay 1:06:11
What do you think I love it, because there's no specific defined curl pattern either. Yeah, this could be a lot of different people's hair, and it also seems to be not as manipulated. The curls look very, very natural, which, by the end of the book, I understood why? Yeah, look
Traci Thomas 1:06:35
like this. Yeah, yeah. So I thought luster was a word that meant, like, sex. Oh
Justine Kay 1:06:43
no, because I thought of lust. Yeah,
Traci Thomas 1:06:47
I had no idea. Oh yeah. I so I a friend of mine who didn't like the book asked me what I thought of the title soul. And I was like, I don't know. I hadn't thought about it. And she was like, Oh, I she thought the same thing as me, is that luster, like had to do with the word lust. Oh, but really it is a glow of reflected light. Yeah, I'm just reading the definitions a glow of light from within a superficial attractiveness or appearance of excellence, a glass pendant used especially to ornament a candlestick or chandelier, and a fabric with cotton warp and the filling of wool, mohair or alpaca. That's, I guess, a British definition, okay, yeah, sorry, we through tea in the harbors. We don't. But I mean, it's, it's a brilliant title, given what the word actually means, I thought it was sort of a weird title, given mine being like, Oh, it's a book about lust. Like, okay. Because I remember thinking halfway through I was like, I was hoping for more lust, but now that I understand, I mean, I think the like, superficial attractiveness or appearance, yeah, excellence is such a good, like, alternate definition. So I ended up really liking it. Also, the cover is shiny, lusturious, yeah, I don't know what the correct word is for that, but it definitely has that sort of shiny. It's almost
Justine Kay 1:08:09
iridescent on the cover as well. Yeah, it reflects
Traci Thomas 1:08:12
light. It has a sheen. So I I liked it. I overall, I think this was a really fun book. I was hoping you would hate it so that we could fight about it. So people at home, you'll have to fight with me and Justine about it in the DMS, I guess, or come to book club. Yeah, join the Patreon and come to book
Justine Kay 1:08:31
club, yeah. And if you want to see us fight, we could fight, we fight about the bachelor. Yeah, yeah,
Traci Thomas 1:08:35
right, because you always take the side of the worst humans. Shows, yep, like you fucking liked Hannah, sure, from Love is blind. I'm
Justine Kay 1:08:43
a Hannah apologist. I'm not team Hannah, but I was a Hannah apologist. For sure, I'll wear this. I'm
Traci Thomas 1:08:48
not even, I'm not even want to saying her name. Say her name. That's how much I hate it most people. Yeah, awful, yeah. Anyways, you all can catch Justine wherever you get your reality TV podcast, aka two black girls, one rose, and I'll link to everything in the show notes and make sure you listen to the end of today's episode to find out what our December book club pick will be. Yeah, Justine, thank you for doing this with me. This
Justine Kay 1:09:14
was so much fun. Oh, thanks for having me.
Traci Thomas 1:09:16
Everybody else. We will see you in The Stacks. All right, y'all that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you again to Justine Kay for joining the show. All right, drum roll please. Now it's what you've all been waiting for. The announcement of our December book club pick. We are going to be reading tacky by rax King. This is an essay collection. It's funny, it's heartfelt, it's a celebration of pop culture and guilty pleasures that shape who we are. It's all about tackiness, nostalgia, things like the Cheesecake Factory. And I can't wait to read it with you. We'll be discussing the book on Wednesday, December 25 Yes, Christmas. Tune in next Wednesday to find out who our guest will be for this episode. If you love this podcast and you want to support the work that I do, if you want inside access and really fun perks, head to patreon.com/thestacks and join the stacks pack and check out my substack at tracithomas.substack.com. make sure you're subscribed to the stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave us a rating and a review for more from the stacks. Follow us on social media@thestackspod on Instagram, threads and Tiktok, and @thestackspod_ on Twitter, and you can check out our website at thestackspodcast.com. This episode of the stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Megan Caballero. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight, and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.