Universality

Starred review from January 6, 2025
Brown’s ambitious and stimulating sophomore novel (after Assembly) begins with an assault during an illegal rave on a West Yorkshire farm. The event, held in violation of Covid lockdown protocols, is recounted in a magazine article that makes up the novel’s first section, which describes how the perpetrator, a lost young man named Jake, came to attack the victim, a radical activist named Pegasus, with a gold bar. The rest of the novel comprises a series of spryly shifting perspectives, as Brown traces the impact of the article on its principal figures, including its floundering writer, the divorced owner of the farm, an investment banker, and a maverick columnist who calls herself “an equal-opportunity hater.” Indeed, Brown’s narrative is less concerned with the crime than with astutely portraying the thorny, complex ways that class and race seep into news, information, and language itself—and how they can be utilized for personal gain. As in Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise and Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry, part of the fun is in seeing where the story will jump to next, and the ways in which each new perspective changes the reader’s understanding. The result is a dizzying and fascinating tale. Agent: Emma Paterson, Aitken Alexander Assoc.