Assembly
The critically acclaimed debut novel
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- USD 12.99
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- USD 12.99
Descripción editorial
SHORTLISTED FOR THE FOLIO PRIZE 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2021
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG FICTION AWARD 2021
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BETTY TRASK PRIZE 2022
LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2022
'Diamond-sharp, timely and urgent' Observer, Best Debuts of 2021
'Subtle, elegant, scorching' Vogue
'Virtuosic, exquisite, achingly unique' Guardian
'I'm full of the hope, on reading it, that this is the kind of book that doesn't just mark the moment things change, but also makes that change possible' Ali Smith
'Exquisite, daring, utterly captivating. A stunning new writer' Bernardine Evaristo
Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Step out into a world of Go Home vans. Go to Oxbridge, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy a flat. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going.
The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend's family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can't escape the question: is it time to take it all apart?
'One of the most talked-about debuts of the year . . . You'll read it in one sitting' Sunday Times Style
'Expertly crafted, remarkable, astonishing... A literary debut with flavours of Jordan Peele's Get Out' Bookseller, Editor's Choice
'Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway meets Citizen by Claudia Rankine... As breathtakingly graceful as it is mercilessly true' Olivia Sudjic
'Bold and original, with a cool intelligence, and so very truthful about the colonialist structure of British society' Diana Evans
'This marvel of a novel manages to say all there is to say about Britain today' Sabrina Mahfouz
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
