★ 06/07/2021
Brown’s provocative and lyrical debut follows a young Black British woman’s navigation of the racism and sexism at her investment banking job while she contends with a breast cancer diagnosis. Brown opens with three third-person vignettes describing an unnamed woman’s sexual harassment from a man she works with, who calls her hair “wild” and her skin “exotic,” then shifts to a first-person account from an unnamed woman, possibly the same one, of why she chose to work for banks. “I understood what they were. Ruthless, efficient money-machines with a byproduct of social mobility.” Her “Lean In feminist” work friend thinks the narrator’s white boyfriend will propose during an upcoming visit to his parents’ estate, but the narrator can tell her would-be mother-in-law hopes it’s a passing fling. Before the trip, she gets the results of a biopsy and tells her boyfriend there’s nothing to worry about. She also reflects ominously on the doctor’s admonishment on her resistance to getting surgery (“that’s suicide”), and on the notion that a successful Black person can ever “transcend” race. References to bell hooks’s writing on decolonization and Claudia Rankine’s concept of “historical selves” bolster her fierce insights. This is a stunning achievement of compressed narrative and fearless articulation. (Sept.)
A short, piercing novel that skewers British ways of thinking about race and class. It's a gorgeous, intimate exploration of one character's thoughts as she approaches a big decision and goes to meet her boyfriend's parents. It came out this summer and I just know that it's going to last for a long time. It's hot, but it's more than just a moment.”—ADAM ZMITH, author of DEEP SNIFF “A hauntingly accurate novel about the stories we construct for ourselves and others…A completely captivating read you won't be able to put down.”—THE INDEPENDENT “A razor-sharp debut…delivers a full-throttle blast of devastating social critique.”—DAILY MAIL “With stylistic economy, Brown etches a portrait of contemporary Britain in all its racial hypocrisy and contradictions, and of a stubbornly brilliant woman for whom death becomes the ultimate protest.” —BOOKLIST "Brown’s literary skills shine from start to finish. She has mastered the deadpan delivery; her sentences are lean and fraught. At 102 pages, Assembly is a treasure of concision." —THE MILLIONS “Brown’s debut novel is a slim but affecting portrayal of the race, class, and sexual politics in contemporary Britain.” —THE MILLIONS, Most Anticipated Books of the Month “Natasha Brown’s brilliantly sharp and curiously Alice-like debut, has arrived…Slim but not slight, at 112 pages, it blows apart the flimsily constructed notion of a race-blind meritocracy long severed from the umbilical cord of its imperial past…There are echoes of Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Mrs. Dalloway , if we can imagine Clarissa Dalloway trying to convert Cheshire Cat smiles and ‘sympathetic brows’ into actual conversation with her Jamaican-descended future daughter-in-law…Her indictment is forensic, clear, elegant, a prose-polished looking glass held up to her not-so-post-colonial nation. Only one puzzle remains unsolved: how a novel so slight can bear such weight.”—TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT “In just 100 pages Natasha Brown delivers a body blow of a book. Assembly is extraordinary, each word weighed, each detail meticulously crafted. It follows the horrible logic of systemic racism to its ghastly end point through a modern Mrs. Dalloway , drifting through London as a party looms, revealing life’s horrors in a relentless stream of consciousness…Brown’s protagonist jumps off the page at you, and her pain is palpable. Meanwhile, Brown is mercilessly clear-eyed in her delineation of how British culture is also ‘assembled’ — its history whitewashed and arguing against it near-impossible when ‘the only tool of expression is the language of this place’. Yet she wields that language like a weapon and hits her mark again and again with devastating elegance.”—THE TIMES “Mind-bending and electrifying.”—NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY “Deft, essential, and a novel of poetic consideration, Assembly holds (the Black-British) identity in its hands, examining it until it becomes both truer and stranger – a question more than an answer. I nodded, I mhmed, I sighed (and laughed knowingly, bitterly).” —RACHEL LONG, author of the Rathbones Folio-shortlisted MY DARLING FROM THE LIONS “Assembly is an understated masterpiece. Elegant, the way a scalpel is elegant…powerfully affecting.”—MARIAN KEYES “An astonishing book that forces us to see what’s underpinning absolutely everything.”—Lauren Elkin, author of FLÂNEUSE “There are shades of Mrs. Dalloway in Natasha Brown's searing Assembly , which is narrated by an unnamed Black woman as she prepares to spend the day at her boyfriend's parents' estate in the English countryside. But unlike the Virginia Woolf classic, this novel is about a woman who is about to burn an oppressive system to the ground — even if she has to take herself down with it.” —POPSUGAR (Best Books of September) “An achievement that will leave you wondering just how it’s possible that this is only the author’s very first work. It may be taut at only 112 pages, but Brown packs so much commentary and insight inside of every single sentence that you still feel like you’re getting much more than your money’s worth. The book is original and startling all at once, and, after reading Assembly , I cannot wait to see what Natasha Brown does next.” —SHONDALAND, Best Fall Reads “Compact, sly, and sticks with you.” —GOOP (The 12 Best Books of the Year) “Natasha Brown has already garnered comparisons to Virginia Woolfe, and with good reason. Assembly is the thoughtful, incendiary story of one day in the life of its narrator, a Black British woman preparing to attend a lavish party but thinking about the choices she's made—the bourgeoise lifestyle into which she's opted—and whether it’s something she can continue to stomach for even another moment.” —TOWN & COUNTRY, Must Read Books of Fall “Assembly will sweep up readers with the sheer power of Brown's devastatingly eloquent prose, culminating in a gorgeous countryside setting where the narrator, attending a lavish party at her boyfriend's family estate, finally confronts her destiny.” —SHELF AWARENESS, Starred Review “Urgent…This is brilliant, carefully crafted, bittersweet storytelling, a tale of immense pressure, of a ‘career’ that must be performed both during and beyond work hours; the career of being the ‘object,’ an exhausting and endless task.”—MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE “Knocked my socks off. It was the kind of book that, as a writer, made me want to put down my pen slash close my laptop forever because she’d said all the things and said them beautifully.”—Cecelia Rabess, THE MILLIONS "Assembly by Natasha Brown is a masterwork. The book is 100 pages, but it contains centuries of wisdom, aesthetic experimentation and history. Brown handles her debut with a surgeon’s control and a musician’s sensitivity to sound."—TESS GUNTY, author of National Book Award-winner THE RABBIT HUTCH,
★ 12/03/2021
DEBUT Brown's first novel is essentially an interior monologue delivered by a woman preparing to attend a sumptuous event at the estate of her boyfriend's patrician parents in the English countryside. The narrator is a Black British woman of Jamaican descent and, like her parents, born in the UK. Her career in finance is a mark of achievement she thinks might also be a sign of complicity with the status quo, as represented by the white family she is visiting and their friends, rooted beneficiaries of imperialism she comments on bitterly, for whom she must role play politesse as they look expectantly for the hidden rage and envy that will affirm them, just as she must role play with the white colleagues who think she got her promotion because she's Black, conservatives who smugly say she's what the country is all about, and liberals who complain that she's selling out her community. All this and a boyfriend who thinks they talk honestly and a serious medical issue to wrestle with, too—all issues she ponders here. VERDICT As much portraiture and piercing social commentary as it is narrative, this affecting work is like no novel you have ever read. For all readers wanting to deepen their understanding of identity issues and/or the formal possibilities of fiction.—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
★ 2021-08-18 A young Black woman considers her options.
At the center of this brilliant debut is a young Black British woman who works in finance. She works, and for as long as she can remember she has worked, in relentless pursuit of achievement, success, excellence. “I am everything they told me to become,” she says. Her White boyfriend comes from a moneyed old family, and an invitation to his parents’ anniversary party—a gargantuan affair—frames one end of this slim, swiftly moving novel. On the other end is a visit the narrator pays to her oncologist, where she discovers she has a decision to make. Between the oncologist and the party is an intense rumination on her choices, her life, and the pieces from which she’s managed to assemble an identity, however flawed. “I have emotions,” she says. “But I try to consider events as if they’re happening to someone else. Some other entity.” Indeed, the narrator seems painfully distant from both the people around her and the changes taking place in her life. She is constantly aware of how her appearance is utilized by others—part of her job, for instance, involves giving talks on diversity, for which her very presence is considered proof of her company’s success. In just over a hundred pages, Brown tackles not only race, but class, wealth, and gender disparities, the lingering effects of colonialism, and the limits of language (“How can I use such a language to examine the society it reinforces?” the narrator wonders). This is Brown’s first novel, and it has all the jagged clarity of a shard of broken glass.
A piercing meditation on identity and race in contemporary Britain.
The whisper-soft voice of narrator Pippa Bennett-Warner draws listeners into this story told by an unnamed Black professional woman who is British. Though only two hours long, the audiobook reveals how racism and sexism infiltrate almost every aspect of the woman’s daily life, including the simple acts of walking down the street and entering a shop. Bennett-Warner captures the poetic cadence of the introspective text as the woman ponders colleagues’ reactions to her progress at work, navigates meeting her wealthy white boyfriend’s parents, and makes decisions about a recent medical diagnosis. Bennett-Warner wisely tones down her portrayals of secondary characters, keeping listeners’ attention fully on the main character’s thoughts and lived experiences. The woman’s story is unique to her but is also relatable to others who live with insidious discrimination. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2021 - AudioFile
The whisper-soft voice of narrator Pippa Bennett-Warner draws listeners into this story told by an unnamed Black professional woman who is British. Though only two hours long, the audiobook reveals how racism and sexism infiltrate almost every aspect of the woman’s daily life, including the simple acts of walking down the street and entering a shop. Bennett-Warner captures the poetic cadence of the introspective text as the woman ponders colleagues’ reactions to her progress at work, navigates meeting her wealthy white boyfriend’s parents, and makes decisions about a recent medical diagnosis. Bennett-Warner wisely tones down her portrayals of secondary characters, keeping listeners’ attention fully on the main character’s thoughts and lived experiences. The woman’s story is unique to her but is also relatable to others who live with insidious discrimination. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2021 - AudioFile