A Review of The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe
Janelle Monáe took on the ambitious goal of becoming an author in addition to being a musician and actress. I don’t listen to her music but did see her in the latest Knives Out movie. Her appeal on screen and onstage is clear but writing fiction requires a totally different skill set.
The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer is her debut work of fiction done in collaboration with published authors and academics. The collection of science fiction stories are described as afrofuturist and cyberpunk. Yet, the influence of more classic science fiction comes through as well. Several of the stories had a twist reminiscent of the Twilight Zone and all shared a dystopian setting that had some influence from Nineteen Eighty-Four and Bladerunner.
To properly review, let’s go through the stories one-by-one. As with all reviews here, there will be some spoilers.
The Memory Librarian
The titular story is about Seshet, the memory librarian tasked with regulating and sometimes deleting problematic memories of the general population as part of a dystopian regime called New Dawn. It is an extreme control measure that definitely felt at least partially inspired by Orwell. Seshet falls in love with a woman Alethia, who turns out to be part of a rebel group who seeks to subvert the New Dawn memory controls.
This isn’t your typical dark, brutalist regime filled with sinister agents in black trench coats flanked by storm troopers. Evident early on is how sensitive Seshet is as well as other characters around her. The concern of her colleagues for her feelings and well-being don’t fit with what one might expect from a high level bureaucracy, especially one that is a mind-control agency. One doesn’t expect to find particularly empathetic people working for the thought police.
Although it has an interesting premise, the story largely lacked tension. The narrative focus is on the relationship between Seshet and Alethia with everything else feeling less important to the authors, or not well-developed. Seshet’s daring descent into the rebel underworld was undermined by the sense that she didn’t seem to be in any real danger. If anything, it felt like just a conservative suburban Mom going to the other side of town to smoke weed with her mistress.
A modest act of rebellion isn’t terribly interesting and doesn’t make for a good central conflict. The stakes for Seshet and New Dawn didn’t feel real even when the plot turned toward stopping the new drug that counteracts the memory controls. The story really could’ve been helped by more overtly placing Seshet in danger, and I don’t mean placing her career in danger.
Nevermind
The second story was the most problematic. Nevermind is about a commune called the Pynk Hotel in the desert wasteland beyond the reach of New Dawn. The story focuses on two characters: Jane a high profile fugitive and sort-of leader at the Hotel, and Neer, a non-binary mechanic who fears the all-woman Hotel may kick them out for not being a real woman.
Those fears prove well-founded. A utopian society the Pynk Hotel is not. They are quirky however. The women are mostly artists, musicians, or creatives of some type. Their small town hall meetings are called “Chords” and considerable time is spent exploring their various hobbies and skills.
You will notice a pattern here. Monáe is writing what she knows, perhaps a little too precisely. It really felt like the stories were about people like herself. She did not include or develop many other types of characters. None of the characters are hardened fugitives fearful of the terrifying New Dawn that could come to take them away. In fact, they don’t seem all that scared or worried. The main concern is the personal drama within the Hotel, specifically between Neer and another resident who doesn’t seem to like them.
Despite their traumatic backstories and the premise, the characters all seem to possess the maturity of sheltered teenagers, with the fragile egos and insecurities all coming through. The authors spend a lot of time describing their feelings towards the other women, their apparel, and their insecurity or fear of being ostracized.
It is difficult to take any of this seriously when the underlying conflict of the story is an oppressive regime that might come to capture them and wipe their memories clean.
Another problem is the dystopian regime built in the first two stories uses a really soft touch. They’re also described by one character as misogynistic and anti-gay but there are zero examples of it. Do they focus their memory wiping technology only on subversive women? That wasn’t clear. Are they seeking to create Stepford housewives? No idea. Are they targeting non-hetero people for mind wiping? Maybe…
It would’ve helped to develop this more rather than have it be implied. The classic “show, don’t tell” writing technique was needed.
The security teams sent to capture Jane are utterly incompetent, defeated twice by a commune of artists with no weapons or training of any kind. Their blushounds, or those that track rebels by sensing their memories or emotions, make for a horrible fugitive retrieval force.
The setting might be dystopian but this isn’t dystopian fiction. It is more about the life of artists wanting to live their own way, most of whom are lesbian or polyamorous, all angry that “The Man” won’t leave them alone and they can’t wait to stick it to him.
This is more of a teen Hippy rebel fantasy, with someone who believes “music is the weapon” or some trite slogan like that. In a way, this feels like a story out of the 60s or 70s era.
Timebox
The trend continues of emotionally immature characters with Raven and Akilah, a couple moving into a new apartment with a pantry that pauses time. Basically you walk inside and time moves normally for you but everything outside pauses.
The two characters are supposed to be adults yet speak and act impulsively as if they’re sixteen. The story would’ve worked a lot better if the characters actually were teenagers, maybe freshmen sharing a college dorm.
The romantic relationship between the two characters felt authentic and was the most developed part of the story. The pantry time travel was a neat hook and executed much better than the New Dawn dystopia of the first two stories.
The ending has a cool Twilight Zone twist that made this one a more memorable read than the first two. However, I do not think it was fully thought through. Locking yourself in a time freezing pantry presents a few issues: i.e. where are you going to shit while you’re in there?
Two minor annoying bits: Raven and Akilah seem to think they can end capitalism with their pantry. I don’t think this was intended to be funny but it made me laugh. It was also strange that no one seems to acknowledge Raven is on the verge of a nervous breakdown throughout the story.
Save Changes
Another time travel story follows, this one is a reset type. Amber and Larry live with their Mother within the New Dawn nightmare. Their Mother was a rebel who had her memory wiped, only it failed and left her disabled. Larry convinces Amber to come with her to an illegal underground party. There she meets other rebels with varying expertise, while she conveniently is able to show off her own expertise on clocks (someone’s clock just happens to be broken!).
The party is busted and the New Dawn stormtroopers and drones are coming for them. To escape, Amber utilizes a larimar, a stone that is imbued with the power to shift back to an earlier point in time, only they don’t know exactly when until after they use it.
This story had a neat ending, probably the most satisfying of the five. Here, the rebels aren’t akin to the Hippy Movement but the rave scene. There are costumes, masks, and parties thrown in industrial or dark areas like beneath a viaduct.
The collaborator, Yohanca Delgado, seems to have influenced this one by making the story tighter, with less exposition and purple prose. It has a lesbian love story subplot that doesn’t crowd out the rest of the story.
Timebox Altar(ed)
This last story was my favorite. A group of kids in an impoverished neighborhood meet a strange woman who convinces them to build a mini fort out of debris on top of an old set of statues. It is meant to be a work of art that the youngest calls in ark, or safe area, but turns out to be a time machine of some kind.
The heart-felt time travel or alternate reality journeys of each kid in the ark are compelling. This story is also written more tightly and rarely goes off on tangents. It gives you a familial bond unique to each kid, which was wonderful to read. The positive message, the capturing childlike awe and wonder, and inspiration to not accept the dystopian world as it is but find a way to build toward a future was compelling and well done.
What slowed down the story a little was a bit of infodumping. Monáe and Sheree Renée Thomas, her collaborator, gave a little too much detail and heavy-handedly fed the reader the income inequality and oppression angle. These details really didn’t matter much to this story.
The lyrical dialogue towards the end of the story was a neat touch. The mysterious old woman bringing otherworldly wisdom was a great addition as well.
No surprise, all the children are creatives of some kind, whether poets, painters, although one turns out to be a city planner. Monáe strongly pushes the importance of art and music in fighting oppression or in giving inspiration and meaning to those who endure it.
The Collection as a Whole
Several themes jump out from this collection. First, these stories are largely about artists, musicians, and other creatives. The authors emphasize the power art has in preserving one’s humanity, providing identity, but also being an act of rebellion. It feels like what a musician would want to be true in a dystopian setting. In other words, these stories are mostly author-inserts.
A couple of the stories also come across as naïve. The characters all have the emotional disposition of typical first world teenagers even when they’re significantly older living in a dystopian nightmare and have traumatic personal histories. The sinister villains of this dystopia often don’t instill fear in the characters and are generally incompetent. This robs some of the stories of their tension to enhance the rebel fantasy.
A focus on gender identity and anti-capitalism also come through in the collection. There was a clear intent to represent LGBTQ characters as much as possible and the desire to normalize the use of preferred pronouns. However, it didn’t help that the authors use they/them as a personal and plural pronouns on the same page (might’ve been in the same paragraph, I forgot to highlight it).
As far as hating capitalism, the stories depict smaller groups operating as communes, using barter rather than currency and not engaging in the regular economy. In other words, they don’t have regular jobs. For creatives, it is nice to fantasize about a world where you don’t have to get a real job and get to play music or paint with a bunch of people just like you. For Monáe, this is probably reality.
It was ironic that the egalitarian Pynk Hotel community turned out to be as fascist and intolerant as their dystopian enemy.
In the story Timebox, one of the characters wants to use the time machine to destroy capitalism. Exactly how that was going to work was a total mystery. The authors don’t explore the economics of their dystopian society at all. We are merely told that it is capitalist, as well as fascist and intolerant.
The themes of the collection seem consistent with what is likely familiar to the author Janelle Monáe but once the stories ventured beyond music, fashion, or LGBTQ romance, The Memory Librarian underwhelms. It isn’t clear how this creates any dirty computer universe, as she calls it. Perhaps it is in reference to her music because this collection doesn’t lay much groundwork for a literary universe.
My guess is if you listened to her music or watched her “emotion” picture, these stories carry more meaning but, if true, that only confirms the weakness of the collection. That would make them supplemental works that struggle to stand on their own.