Natasha Brown

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?

Assembly

dascha

How do we examine the legacy of colonisation when the basic facts of its construction are disputed in the minds of its beneficiaries? (...) How can we engage, discuss, even think through a post-colonial lens, when there's no shared base of knowledge? When even the simplest account of events - as preserved in the country's own archives - wobbles suspect as tin-foil-hat conspiracies in the minds of its educated citizens?

Born here, parents born here, always lived here - still, never from here. Their culture becomes parody on my body.

Generations of sacrifice; hard work and harder living. So much suffered, so much forfeited, so much - for this opportunity. For my life. And I've tried, tried living up to it. But after years of struggling, fighting against the current, I'm ready to slow my arms. Stop kicking. Breathe the water in. I'm exhausted. Perhaps it's time to end this story.

I may revisit this one since I listened to it as an audiobook and didn’t feel very much but how unfortunate it can feel to be a woman of color. 

ayoni

Sohini Roy

The actual story behind this book is so important- a black British woman stuck in a corporate society trying to move her way up and make something of herself, while struggling with discrimination and self identity, people telling her that she is what she is because of affirmative action, that THEY'RE the ones suffering injustice because things are handed to her in the workplace for the sake of seeming diverse. A lot of lines in this book hit hard and some parts are extremely well-written. My only issue with this is that the writing style is just not for me. The scenes continuously jump around, there's no distinct quotation or set dialogue, it was kind of difficult to keep up and understand what was going on sometimes. I wish there had been a little more plot and a little less continuous narration.

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?

Manuela

Short, but impactful. Diversity in the authors you read is so important

armoni mayes

i really truly hated the style of this *novel*. why is the font so large and spacing so large. i also don’t think the writing style worked for me–it was really confusing and i honestly didn’t know what the hell she was talking about half of the time

Monicap

** spoiler alert **
           "I only know Jamaica from stories. Visiting aunts and uncles, cousins — family. Unwrapping wedges of breadfruit; Julie mangoes; fruit cake; a rich buttery pear sliced open, spread on to harddough bread; stories about family, sitting out on a veranda into the night, all together, telling each other stories. A promise of a welcome, warm, loving family, always, retreating. They all fly back.
I stay here. Their English cousin.

This book (since I read it alongside Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation) serves as the proof that I don't simply dislike the nascent genre of "millennial ennui". In comparison to Moshfegh's novel, while both are slow-paced, barely plotted, and end with an implied or metaphorical death, Assembly was if not an enjoyable read, one that felt as though it was time well spent.

Assembly follows an unnamed narrator navigating her career. She is a black British woman in finance who faces both sexism and racism in the workplace and in her everyday life. The novel primarily takes place over the course of the weekend, where she and her boyfriend visit his parents for a 30th (50th? Doesn't really matter) wedding anniversary celebration while the protagonist silently grapples with a cancer diagnosis.

The novel (novella? Not sure where the distinction lies) uses this lens to examine themes of ancestry and complicity. While the narrator herself has amassed enough wealth through her job in finance to live well, her boyfriend comes from old money:

In his playful moods, my boyfriend tells me I've got lots of money. Much more than him. He says I'm one per cent.
Well, money is one thing. He has wealth ... What's the difference? he asks. I tell him. One of us goes to work at six a.m. each morning. The other sits browsing the papers at the cafe down the road.

The book also deals with the narrator's feelings towards her own complicity in capitalism: early in the novella, she speaks at a school assembly to young girls about her work in finance. She tells the reader she does this often, at her employer's request. "How many women and girls have I lied to?" She asks. "How many have seen my grinning face advocating for this or that firm, or this industry, or that university, this life? Such questions aren't constructive. I need to catch up on this morning's lost hours." Specifically, however, the narrator has a younger sister who is following in our narrator's footsteps, and the narrator is unable to dissuade her sister from this career path or complicity in capitalism as it is impossible to escape capitalism.

Except, of course, by death. And at the time the narrator received her cancer diagnosis she elected to forgo treatment. Nothing is a choice, as she observed in the doctor's office.

The writing, as I hope is evidenced by the quotes I've shared in this review, is almost poetic in its brevity and beauty. Every word feels deliberate. It's a book that makes you want to read it out loud to do it justice. 

Will this novel/la stick with me, be one I’m thinking about years down the line? I don’t know. Is it a favorite? Probably not. But was it worth the read and FOR SURE a better example of millennial ennui genre? I'd say so.

Isabella 

such a fantastic book. writing style could be overwhelming, but it is beautiful!! so much insights for a very short book.

Jasmine Ghartey

ms.brown ate with this one. i'm obsessed. OBSESSED

anna near

This book is a powerful discussion on how deep racism and misogyny is rooted in society, notably the workplace. The writing of Natasha Brown is incisive and forceful, if occasionally impersonal. I really enjoyed the fractured writing style. It was definitely an uncomfortable read, but incredibly impactful. I think everyone should read it as in invoked a lot of internal conversations on microaggressions, sexual harassment, casual racism, the capitalist mindset, and modern effects of Imperialism. 

The "plot-twist" was a stinging piece of symbolism. The metaphorical basis of it was devastating and 100% left a lasting impression on me. This book was, in short, unforgettable. I can't wait to read literally anything else Natasha Brown writes.

Shreya Punj

Natasha Brown’s prose cuts into everyday racism with surgical precision. The impact of each sentence, each pause leaves you reeling. A powerful novel, Assembly examines the many privileges that layer our everyday existence.

Do yourself a favour and read this brilliant book, please.

Midori Kobayashi

very important topics covered- race, sexism, capitalism, micro agressions etc. the writing is also good but the ending felt very abrupt to me...

a must read to gain a tiny glimpse at racism from the marginalised perspective. many lessons that need to be reread and internalised

sophia n

Samaa alaa eldin

Brilliant and powerful with so many important topics mentioned

Sabrina

Multidimensional quick paced read. Great to get you out of a reading slump. Thought provoking and unique debut novel

Fraser Simons

I simultaneously agree with, and see what is being communicated to the reader about immigration, assimilation, micro aggressions, racism; essentially negotiating every single situation at a level removed from personhood in an effort to not feel your identity is as violated when the inevitable penetration of gaze, and other types of encroachment, move in skin-to-skin… And still, as a reader, be absolutely, constantly aware of how unenjoyable the reading experience was because of that stylistic and structural choice. 

Never being fully embodied and having every point filed down to the equivalent of round peg and square hole, see how they fit together? How messed up is it that this is that and that is this and when they fit they’re so poorly machined together they bump and scrape and require significant force to become one object and later disentangle! 

I guess what I’m saying is: Every point in a solipsistic narrative feels like it’s too transparent and self aware, because the only that feels real is the experience. That’s kind of the point of the Autofiction written as such; yet it is also disembodied and intelligent in its pointing out of caricatures being so tired they dwell in every moment of life. Yet that’s surrealism, isn’t it? 

Why blunt poignant points and sometimes brilliant specificity and description? The point of the disassociation doesn’t feel as if it’s being made nearly as well because of the incongruent nature of the vignettes. Rather than balance it is far weighted to one side. The Point Being Made. I get it. My god, how could you not? There’s nothing as interesting as hammer presented while we stare at a nail for 100 pages.

Assembly

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