Assembly

“These directives: listen, be quiet, do this, don’t do that. When does it end? And where has it got me? More, and more of the same. I am everything they told me to become. Not enough. A physical destruction, now, to match the mental. Dissect, poison, destroy this new malignant part of me. But there’s always something else: the next demand, the next criticisms this endless complying, attaining, exceeding—why?”
☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️
This is exactly the kind of story I hope to find when I wander around a bookstore and pick something up at random (also, I am struggling with “The Little Friend” and need a break!!). The writing throughout was beautiful, airy, and suffocating—both contradictory yet overlapping throughout each page.

The narrator of “Assembly” (written by Natasha Brown, whose name I didn’t realize I was covering) sits at the crossroads of several locations: she is a black woman, in a financially successful job where she is demeaned and harassed by her male coworkers, in a relationship that feels like there is a present but no future.

There’s a beautiful section of this book where the narrator ruminates on the feeling of dread she experiences—the ubiquitous nature of it in her life. When do you transcend that feeling? How do you escape it when it’s entrenched into every aspect of your life?

This book is so so good, and so much bigger than the simple garden party it is physically grounded in.

Probably the only reason this isn’t a 5 star for me is because it’s so short that not enough is developed. Brown, or at least her protagonist, appears to be the spiritual heir of Sylvia Plath.