On the Eurostar to London’s St. Pancras, an older man asked me where I am from and what I study. Seeing my book, written in English, he asked if I was a literature student. So much of me wanted to say yes. Unfortunately, I told him, I am a media student. Still, a lie.
Throughout my 64 hour journey to Ghent Belgium, I enthralled myself in Natasha Brown’s “Assembly.” Written in 2021 and taking place in a pre-COVID-19 London, “Assembly” explores the eventful summer of a Black woman in financial services, and specifically the roles and experiences that she, knowingly or unknowingly, signed herself up for.
Everything about this book is precise, timely and written with full intention. In under 100 pages, Brown manages to present the complex future that Black people in Britain deal with as they enter a corporate setting. The feeling of inadequacy and pressure as a Black woman in modern-day Britain and the surprising lack of agency that comes once you have supposedly “made it.” What drew me to buying this book (which is often a difficult feat) was the inside cover which states:
“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.”
It reminds me a lot of Ewan McGregor’s famous monologue in the 1996 film “Trainspotting” — “Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a family. Choose a f**king big television” — continuing on to his denial of this choice. Instead, he chose heroin.
Because I’m not a heroin addict, I can relate more to Brown’s monologue, and I’m sure many students who study subjects adjacent to business or politics can as well. There is a complex dilemma that I’ve found myself approaching more and more the further I’ve progressed into my career. It’s the balance between having a comfortable life and living for yourself. I think that Brown does an amazing job revealing the feelings of someone who has made this choice, to follow the path that we all feel we ought to take, but question doing so.
Of course, I cannot relate to the nuances of being a Black woman in the workplace, which makes this book all the more impactful for me. Seeing how the message of achieving a kind of corporate success means so much to Brown is really intriguing. In the book, the nameless protagonist claims that she sometimes wonders why she chose this life, but she reminds herself that without this lofty job, large salary, white boyfriend and mid-century modern warehouse apartment, her voice would be heard even less than it already is. For her, gaining a corporate identity, having her company’s name behind hers, gives her an air of credibility.
Oxford or Cambridge? A name has the power to open the door. Without a certain word, without a named justifier, she feels like she would be nothing.
After reading “Assembly,” I was reminded of Noam Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent.” In his Five Theories of the Media Machine, he discusses the idea of the Media Elite. This idea claims that in certain societal models, most likely liberal ones, journalism cannot truly be a check on power. The system of media, and arguably the corporate world, requires complicity. There are little ways in which a journalist can be successful without adhering to outside interests of the corporations they work for. I found “Assembly” touched upon issues very parallel to this one. The protagonist has a message she wants to share with the young students that she speaks with about her company, she wants to tell them the reality of her experience. However, this freedom of speech is no longer granted because she has signed up to spread a message she does not stand behind. As soon as she gets a voice, she must use it for interests that are not hers. She is forcing her body to manufacture their perception of her job, a reality which she does not live.
But what else is she to do? This is where “Assembly” creates a realistic depiction of a young person’s dilemma. Like I said before, of course we don’t want to be a cog in this corporate machine, but, if not, what else? I think there are ways to look around this, to be more hopeful and positive about a future career. But I also think there are many reasons to be negative about it. Most likely I will also work somewhere that may force me to manufacture ideas — but I will always remember to ask questions, to be suspicious of projected realities.
In an interview with the American Library in Paris, Brown says “be skeptical, approach this story with skepticism” for “Penguin wouldn’t publish a book that they didn’t feel would sell.”
