Remember—words are your weapons, they’re your tools, your currency: a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of power, hailed as ‘a nesting doll of satire that leaves readers uncertain where their loyalties lie’ (Financial Times)
‘Original, vital, and unputdownable.’—Tess Gunty, National Book Award–winning author of The Rabbit Hutch
Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar.
An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic newspaper columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers. Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, Universality focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.
A thrilling novel from one of the most acclaimed young novelists working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away.
Genre: Literary Fiction
‘Original, vital, and unputdownable.’—Tess Gunty, National Book Award–winning author of The Rabbit Hutch
Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar.
An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic newspaper columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers. Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, Universality focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.
A thrilling novel from one of the most acclaimed young novelists working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Universality is a rare novel. It's bold and brilliant. The humor is wry and, at times, cutting. But more than that, it's an intelligent and humorous examination of class and wealth - and a real page-turner to boot. I will read anything Natasha Brown writes." - Molly Aitken
"In what is proving to be her signature architecture - a compact, cunning design of secret passageways - Brown immerses the reader in a house of haunted language. Fixing its attention on the cultural mutations of the extraction economy, Universality implicates everyone and condemns no one. I emerged from this novel with the conviction that the murder victim Brown is here to avenge is discourse itself. . . . Original, vital, and unputdownable." - Tess Gunty
"Universality is smart and expansive, keen on the intricacies of language and class." - Raven Leilani
"Another sharp serve from a brilliant mind." - Paul Mendez
"I think that is the book everyone will be reading and talking about in 2025. Brave, wry, cool, and thrilling, Universality is the kind of fiction that makes you sit up and feel alive." - Andrew O'Hagan
"In what is proving to be her signature architecture - a compact, cunning design of secret passageways - Brown immerses the reader in a house of haunted language. Fixing its attention on the cultural mutations of the extraction economy, Universality implicates everyone and condemns no one. I emerged from this novel with the conviction that the murder victim Brown is here to avenge is discourse itself. . . . Original, vital, and unputdownable." - Tess Gunty
"Universality is smart and expansive, keen on the intricacies of language and class." - Raven Leilani
"Another sharp serve from a brilliant mind." - Paul Mendez
"I think that is the book everyone will be reading and talking about in 2025. Brave, wry, cool, and thrilling, Universality is the kind of fiction that makes you sit up and feel alive." - Andrew O'Hagan
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