When she is diagnosed with cancer and delays treatment, it feels ironic: She is othered by the whites in her office, who bring up how much they despise quotas. It is a weary life she leads managing harassment and microaggressions. He leaned right into my face and spat out those words. She recounts a frightening experience of being called the n-word while waiting for the subway: "A panhandler at Aldgate, big guy, came up too close, and trapped me - between him and the steep drop down the tracks. Exist in the negative only."Įven when she acts according to these expectations, she isn't safe, including from those of a lower economic class. Haunting are the expectations: " Be the best.
The intersection of what she is supposed to have (success) and what she has to overcome (racism) creates imposter syndrome (see Beyond the Book). She feels like a fraud despite her multiple established identities: an immigrant daughter, a banking professional, an achiever. She privately wonders, "How many women and girls have I lied to? How many have seen my grinning face advocating for this or that firm, or this industry, or that university?" But her speeches are more performative than authentic. The unnamed narrator of Assembly delivers speeches resembling TED Talks to schoolgirls who marvel at her success. Perhaps it's time to end this story." Therein is the fascinating theme of Assembly, a story told in vignettes: The idea that racism isn't a nefarious object to be overcome, but that it punishes us first and then kills us. The narrator is at the end of her rope when she says, "I'm ready to slow my arms. But the cost of soldiering on deteriorates her mental and physical health. She tells the story of a Black British Jamaican woman in London, a striver who manages her toxic work environment by pretending racial insults and derogatory comments don't bother her. Or endanger everything she has worked so hard for.Īuthor Natasha Brown posits a provocative idea in her debut novel Assembly: Racism is cancerous. A British Jamaican woman who has achieved success in the London banking industry is diagnosed with cancer and faced with a decision: Seek treatment.
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