Assembly

Best for:
Anyone who loves compact storytelling that manages to tell a deep and engaging tale.

In a nutshell:
The Narrator, a successful Black British woman who isn’t named, takes us through the day or two before and morning of a visit to her posh white boyfriend’s family home for a party. But that isn’t so much the point; the focus is how Narrator navigates the daily, hourly injustices she faces in this world.

Worth quoting:
“Assimilate, assimilate … Dissolve yourself into the melting pot.”

“His acceptance of me encourages theirs. His presence vouches for mine, assures them that I’m the right sort of diversity.”

“His parents tolerated me. As good, socially liberal parents would.”

Why I chose it:
Last year (pre-pandemic) I show more received a ‘Book Spa’ gift certificate and was just able to redeem it. It involved a discussion with a bookseller, who then pulled like TWENTY books for me to choose from, discussing why he thought I would like them. I ended up buying 15 of them. This is one of them.

Review:
I could write pages about this book. A university could use this book as the basis for a course on literature, on England, on colonialism. It’s just SO GOOD.

The Narrator is a Black woman living in London, dating a white man. Narrator is, as we learn, extremely successful in her career in finance; her boyfriend comes from money and, as far as I can tell, ‘works’ at building his legacy. He is entitled and unappealing, and I want to know exactly why Narrator chose to be with him. It’s clear why he chose to be with her. Probably not consciously, but it is there.

Narrator is dealing with success in work but with another challenge in her personal life, and that challenge seems to have crystallized her view of her life. As someone in finance she likely was already able to view things ‘logically,’ as it were, but she now seems freer to evaluate everything from a point of brutal honesty. Her white boyfriend, white ‘best friend,’ white colleagues. The parents of the white boyfriend, who clearly view the relationship as ‘just a phase.’ She herself views it that way as well.

Not a lot happens over the 100+ pages from a plot perspective, and yet I was nearly breathless as I turned each page, wanting to learn more of what author Brown felt important to share. How was Narrator feeling? What was she experiencing? How would she make decisions about her future?

The book is disappointing only in that I could have read so much more about Narrator. Brown’s ability to pack so much into so few pages is unreal, and I’ll probably read this again before the year is out.

Recommend to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a Friend show less

An unnamed Black British woman navigates her personal life and job dealing with everyday microaggressions and how she presents herself to the world.

The narrative is sparse in this novella, which takes place in a day or two leading up to a garden party given by the woman's boyfriend's parents. Only a few characters are named - the boyfriend's parents insist our character call them by their first names. And then there is Lou, a rather mediocre white man who says he is "sharing" the promotion with our main character, who has it because the bank they work for needed to showcase more diversity. Meanwhile, the woman is also deciding what treatment, if any, to get for a recent cancer diagnosis. It's a powerful examination of how constant show more racism and sexism can pick apart one's sense of self. Natasha Brown doesn't give the reader any easy answers, or even full closure, just a lot of questions about how the world works and why those in power keep it this way. show less

I do not pick up many novellas, but this is one of the best I have read. It is a powerful story about racism in the UK, as told by an unnamed black female protagonist. She and her unnamed white boyfriend plan to attend a garden party at his parents’ estate in the English countryside.

As the title implies, this book is made up of vignettes that, when assembled, portray the challenges she faces on a daily basis. Some show her at work, being criticized for having it easier than her white colleagues. Others describe visits to her doctor, and their disagreements over her treatment. She gives motivational presentations to college students, encouraging them to work their way to success, but internally, she questions whether she is giving them show more good advice.

The writing is stellar. It gives the reader a sense of what the protagonist’s life is like and it inspires empathy. It is cultural critique containing microaggressions, sexual harassment, and casual racism. It is creative, fresh, and relevant. Highly recommended.

A couple of my favorite passages:
“I will be watched, that’s the price of admission. They’ll want to see my reactions to their abundance: polite restraint, concealed outrage, and a base, desirous hunger beneath. I must play this part with a veneer of new-millennial-money coolness; serving up savage witticisms alongside the hors d’oeuvres…. My thoughts, my ideas – even my identity – can only exist as a response to the partygoers’ words and actions. Articulated along the perimeter of their form. Reinforcing both their self-hood, and its centrality to mine. How else can they be certain of who they are, and what they aren’t? Delineation requires a sharp, black outline."

“Always, the pressure is there. Assimilate, assimilate… Dissolve yourself into the melting pot. And then flow out, pour into the mould. Bend your bones until they splinter and crack and you fit. Force yourself into their form. Assimilate, they say it, encouraging. Then frowning. Then again and again. And always there, quiet, beneath the urging language of tolerance and cohesion – disappear!” show less

112 pages. I read it in one sitting. Not because this was an easy read, or a plot-driven page turner. But it demanded my attention and I had to read it without an interlude, could not step away from the internal world of the narrator as she travels into the dark night of her soul.

Natasha Brown’s Assembly is startling, original, and unsettling.

A young woman has arrived. She has a high power job, a posh life, a boyfriend with a rich heritage. But, cost is too much to bear. She is exhausted.

It’s how the men at work treat her, how strangers come on to her. It’s how she must be in constant control to project the right image. It’s how she is a made an example of success.

Be the best. Work harder, work smarter. Exceed every expectation. show more But also, be invisible, imperceptible. Don’t make anyone uncomfortable. from Assembly by Natasha Brown

She is a black woman in Britain. And that makes all the difference. A person of color from a previously colonized country. Her very color is a stigma. Her very success makes her a target for white jealously and hate.

She struggles with a life or death question, keeping the news secret from her boyfriend who takes her to his ancestral home and imagines a life together.

Why endure my own dehumanization? from Assembly by Natasha Brown

As an American, I had not realized how in 2021 British view people from the countries they once dominated and plundered, that ‘keep Britain white’ and ‘go home’ were chants of hate.

Confronted by the truth of one woman’s life, we reevaluate our own story, our own culture, and our own participation in systemic racism.

Readers of the best literary fiction will love this novel.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased. show less

I do not pick up many novellas, but this is one of the best I have read. It is a powerful story about racism in the UK, as told by an unnamed black female protagonist. She and her unnamed white boyfriend plan to attend a garden party at his parents’ estate in the English countryside.

As the title implies, this book is made up of vignettes that, when assembled, portray the challenges she faces on a daily basis. Some show her at work, being criticized for having it easier than her white colleagues. Others describe visits to her doctor, and their disagreements over her treatment. She gives motivational presentations to college students, encouraging them to work their way to success, but internally, she questions whether she is giving them show more good advice.

The writing is stellar. It gives the reader a sense of what the protagonist’s life is like and it inspires empathy. It is cultural critique containing microaggressions, sexual harassment, and casual racism. It is creative, fresh, and relevant. Highly recommended.

A couple of my favorite passages:
“I will be watched, that’s the price of admission. They’ll want to see my reactions to their abundance: polite restraint, concealed outrage, and a base, desirous hunger beneath. I must play this part with a veneer of new-millennial-money coolness; serving up savage witticisms alongside the hors d’oeuvres…. My thoughts, my ideas – even my identity – can only exist as a response to the partygoers’ words and actions. Articulated along the perimeter of their form. Reinforcing both their self-hood, and its centrality to mine. How else can they be certain of who they are, and what they aren’t? Delineation requires a sharp, black outline."

“Always, the pressure is there. Assimilate, assimilate… Dissolve yourself into the melting pot. And then flow out, pour into the mould. Bend your bones until they splinter and crack and you fit. Force yourself into their form. Assimilate, they say it, encouraging. Then frowning. Then again and again. And always there, quiet, beneath the urging language of tolerance and cohesion – disappear!” show less

A truly haunting tiny tale, barely 100 pages, of a Black British woman being brutalized at her competitive corporate job and being urged into marriage by a wealthy white boyfriend who might be able to make her troubles vanish. Well, maybe not all of them - she's been diagnosed with a virulent cancer and is so dispirited that she can't even agree to undergoing treatment and saving her life, which she considers worthless and irreparable. She shares instances of blatant racism that are so hard to even fathom, no less read, but help anyone not Black to understand her ambivalence about saving herself.

Quotes: "I have lived life by the principle that when I face a problem, I must work to find an action I can take to overcome it; or show more accommodate it; or forge a new path around it; excavate the ground beneath it, even. This is how we teach our children to approach obstacle after obstacle: work twice as hard, be twice as good. And always, assimilate."

"The unquestioned assumption is of something given; something unearned, taken, from a deserving and hardworking - "

"Why live? Why subject myself further to their reductive gaze? Why endure my own dehumanization? To carry on, now that I have a choice, is to choose complicity."

"At any moment, any of them could appear, could demand to know who I am, what I'm doing. Who told me I could do that here?" show less

4.5 - the style is a bit confusing - stream of consciousness and fluid time, a la Mrs. Dalloway, per one reviewer. But the topic requires a little fluidity as the narrator tries to navigate her way through post-imperialist Britain as a young black woman. She is an unnamed narrator, working her way up the finance ladder after a stellar education and early promotions which her co-workers pin on 'diversity.' She is dating a young white man, dabbling in politics, who comes from 'old' money, complete with country home, etc. Together they are headed to his parents' 40th anniversary garden party at their manor house. This is the main narrative, but the line is criss-crossed and looped over and through by the narrator's thoughts - about work, show more about being a woman, about being a minority, about systems that keep the old order safely in place, and about her own health issues (which don't really come to the forefront). The writing is lyrical - almost like prose poetry - and told episodically and from memory, rather than as a straight line narrative. The writer is extremely talented and some of the observations that come through the character are deeply thought-provoking: "The quiet here is absolute. I feel unobserved. Though I know what is to come, and what is expected of me, at tomorrow's party. I understand the function I'm here to perform. There's a promise of enfranchisement and belonging, yes. A narrative peak in the story of my social ascent. Of course, they - the family, even the guests - knew I could not turn down such an invitation. I will be watched, that's the price of admission." (70) The title refers to the way the narrator constructs her life - carefully, with proscribed directions, at once as clear and as obfuscated as Ikea furniture handouts. Short, but jam-packed with meaning, nuance, and understanding. show less