Assembly
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3.7 • 11 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A NATALIE PORTMAN BOOK CLUB PICK
FINALIST FOR THE 2022 LA TIMES ART SEIDENBAUM AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION.
“The electrifying fiction debut that has been called ‘a modern Mrs. Dalloway.’”—THE ATLANTIC
"Mind-bending and utterly original."—Brandon Taylor
“Slim in the hand, but its impact is massive.”—Ali Smith
One woman. One day. One decision. A blistering, fearless, and unforgettable literary debut from "a stunning new writer." (Bernardine Evaristo)
Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Go to college, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy an apartment. 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?
Assembly is a story about the stories we live within – those of race and class, safety and freedom, winners and losers.And it is about one woman daring to take control of her own story, even at the cost of her life. With a steely, unfaltering gaze, Natasha Brown dismantles the mythology of whiteness, lining up the debris in a neat row and walking away.
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.
