Assembly by Natasha Brown / Review

 

Introducing our 10 best debut novelists of 2021

Assembly 

by Natasha Brown

Perfect reading for fans of Raven Leilani and Jenny Offill, Brown’s incendiary debut investigates the stories we tell ourselves about race and class through the burgeoning realisations of a young Black British woman.  

Blistering, fearless and unforgettable, a literary debut from an astonishing new talent in British fiction, for fans of Raven Leilani, Claudia Rankine and Jenny Offill.

'Natasha Brown's exquisite prose, daring structure and understated elegance are utterly captivating. She is a stunning new writer' Bernardine Evaristo, author of the Booker Prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other

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 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.

Natasha Brown

Diamond-sharp, timely and urgent... Written in a distilled, minimalist prose, Assembly is illuminating on everything from micro aggressions in the workplace, to the reality of living in the "hostile environment", to the legacy of British colonialism * Observer, Best Debuts of 2021 *

Natasha Brown's exquisite prose, daring structure and understated elegance are utterly captivating. She is a stunning new writer -- Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of 'Girl, Woman, Other'

WATERSTONES