Lesley’s Reviews > Luster > Status Update

“ When I begin to braid my hair, she watches me, and I try to remain aloof, … I was sixteen. I could not have been a mother. The women in my family maybe should not have been mothers. This is not so much a judgment as a fact. They were dying inside their own bodies, and now all these dead components are my inheritance.” -p.195

“ I feel suckered into admitting it, that it matters, that I have thought about it, the apparent isolation of their [a] child, a thing immediately recognizable to me for being myself that thing which is both hypervisible and invisible: Black and alone.” p.99

“ I interview well despite my nerves, and while I wish I could take credit for that, my ability to maintain human form and make a good impression is all about my skin. The expectations of me in these settings are frequently so low, it would be impossible not to surpass them.” p.83

“ And then I miscalculated. … but I’m sure she still finds this an acceptable price of admission. She still rearranges herself, waiting to be chosen. And she will be. Because it is an art - to be Black and dogged and inoffensive. She’s all these things and she is embarrassed that I am not.” p.22