This slim novel was published in London last year under the title “Assembly” and became a resounding success.
It is the literary debut of Natasha Brown, whose previous career in London finance has roughly paralleled that of her protagonist.
Brown calculates very precisely how she hits the core of British society with classism and racism, colonialism, diversity and sexism.
The reviews were positive to hymn-like.
Rose Maria Gropp
Editor in the Feuilleton.
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The first-person narrator is nameless.
She is a young and attractive black woman in England, second generation immigrant.
Again and again she is confronted with the assumption that she comes “from Africa”.
Only marginally is it clear that her ancestry is from Jamaica, the former British colony.
Even before that, Jamaica's history was marked by the kidnapping of African slaves.
But in its origins it cannot and does not want to make up any part of its identity.
She studied mathematics at an elite university and rose high in the banking world.
She reports on this to school classes to motivate young people.
But her social advancement, her brilliant performance and the associated financial independence do not give her any stability.
It's just one of the slaps in the face that she,
more or less open to endure;
she had to admit that not only her gender but also the color of her black skin helped her.
Which lay beneath the mother's hostility
She is in a relationship with a young, wealthy political advisor, he belongs to the English upper class, it would be a perfect alliance.
Meanwhile, her boyfriend cannot be carefree either;
once it is said that in the morning he swallows his citalopram, a drug for depression and anxiety disorders.
Tradition weighs on him, the innate claim of his family in paternalistic tradition, because the titles and inheritance come from the father, who appears sovereign.
Her friend's mother had "married in": "The mother's ambivalence was more traditional.
Once she introduced me with the embarrassing line 'our youngest's current queen of hearts' while smiling knowingly at the acquaintance who had asked." identified.