"Nobody thinks they are the bad guy"

Today at Festivaletteratura, British writer Natasha Brown sat down with journalist Nadeesha Uyangoda in Mantova’s Rococo-style Bibiena Theatre to discuss her latest novel, Universality, a sharp and realistic portrayal of contemporary British society spanning the financial sector, media and off-grid communal living.

Universality opens with an investigative report of a crime, written as long-form journalism. Bringing journalistic style into a novel was a bold move which worried her editor, but Brown was interested in the merging of fiction-writing techniques and journalism which has now become a reporting standard. We expect to trust journalism, whereas we know and want novels to be untrue.

The conversation shifted to the gold ingot which is a prominent part of the plot. Contemporary articles need an unbelievable element to keep people reading and fuel the viral circuit. But the ingot is also a symbol of precarity. Following the 2008 financial crash, many bankers bought gold, seeing it as a form of security. What if this human desire for security curdled into something grotesque?

Uyangoda admires the structure of the novel, each chapter written from a different character’s lens. Brown wanted to give every voice a distinct genre, ensuring readers could fully take in the different perspectives. She spent a full year developing the characters and their voices before starting work on the narrative.

At the heart of Universality are Hannah and Lenny, two journalists at different points in their careers, navigating a field transformed by shifting economics. The ensuring devaluation of quality in favour of quantity and speed in news media becomes a metaphor for the broader societal shifts Brown explores.

Hannah, in the early stages of her career, is finding it hard to eke out a living in an increasingly competitive environment. Lenny, who has already made a name for herself, is a hyper-realist satire of an anti-woke journalist. “Nobody thinks they are the bad guy,” Brown noted, choosing to make the final section a real-time narration of Lenny’s perspective. Lenny’s appeal lies in her wit and storytelling prowess: she delivers appalling, even disgusting, remarks in a way that’s captivating and darkly humorous. It’s this contradiction that makes her unforgettable, forcing readers to engage.