Assembly

"Assembly" by Natasha Brown is the story of a Black British woman, the novel's unnamed protagonist, who has been under enormous pressure from the world around her for her entire life. She has worked hard to leave her social class behind and rise above her working-class roots. She has done all that could possibly be expected of her. She went to Oxbridge and got an education. She has started a career in a well-paying field. She has kept her mouth shut and answered hostility with civility. She has bought a flat of her own and has everything that she should want... Everything except agency and a sense of self.

Everything comes to a head the day she goes to the English countryside with her white boyfriend. They are about to attend his parents' anniversary party at the ancestral family estate, but the closer they get the more she is inclined to reassess herself and all that she is. Every part of her is carefully assembled, but why is that? And who does it benefit? It might be time to take herself apart.

"Assembly" by Natasha Brown is the astonishing and incisive literary debut of a talented and promising writer, who isn't afraid to truthfully pick apart modern British society and its persistent colonial roots.