Universality: A Novel

Remember—words are your weapons, they’re your tools, your currency: a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of power.

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 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, namely: Who wrote it? Why? And how much of it is true? Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, the book focuses in on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.

The thrilling novel from one of the most acclaimed and incisive young novelists working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away.

Story Locale:England

About the Author

Natasha Brown was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Her debut novel Assembly was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Orwell Prize for Fiction.

Author Hometown: London