The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer
by Janelle Monáe
Reviewed by Alma Sterling
Harper Voyager, 2022

Musician, singer-songwriter, rapper, and actor Janelle Monáe adds author to her list of talents with The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer. Along with a group of collaborating writers, including Alaya Dawn Johnson, Eve L. Ewing, and Sheree Renée Thomas, Monáe expands on the world of her 2018 Dirty Computer concept album and emotional picture through the course of five stories. The collection’s preface, “Breaking Dawn,” introduces readers to the fictional landscape of New Dawn, its dystopian rule and its philosophy. The basis of power here is the expansion of techno-nationalism and the surveillance state. In this world, dirty computers—those who are racialized, gender-marginalized, queer, deviant, and Other, are the enemy of dominant power and are under constant threat of being “cleansed.” Memory Librarian presents five Afrofuturistic narratives about love, desire, and the choices people make when presented with a glimpse at an alternate future in a world where humans are cruelly made out to be machines. This inventive anthology is enough to inspire readers to dream of another future of their own.

The first two—and the longest—stories of the collection, “The Memory Librarian” and “Nevermind,” are set to do the majority of introductory worldbuilding for the anthology. “The Memory Librarian” takes readers directly into the physical heart of New Dawn in the city of Little Delta, represented by a towering obelisk, and follows Seshet, the city’s Director Librarian. Through dynamic prose, Monáe and Alaya Dawn Johnson weave in and out of the mystery of the protagonist Seshet’s past and the trouble of her present. As a glitch in the memory collection system threatens her precarious position as a Black lesbian Director Librarian, Seshet develops a romance with a Black trans woman and talented chemist named Alethia, who finds a home among the city’s “memory fugitives.” Though the story’s narrative is at times hard to follow, the story is compelling: Seshet walks the line between “dirty” and “clean,” facing a moral and personal conflict—will she continue to ascend the ranks of the New Dawn hierarchy, or choose to pursue true freedom?

“Nevermind” introduces us to a group of characters who have escaped New Dawn’s rule and now find refuge at the off-grid Pynk Hotel, open to queer and woman-aligned people. Monáe and Danny Lore build a two-part narrative filled with exciting action sequences as the Pynk Hotel is targeted by New Dawn. The first part of the story follows Monáe’s longtime character Jane 57821, giving readers glimpses—albeit vague—of the past. The second follows Neer, a nonbinary resident of the hotel, and expands upon present threats: being tracked by New Dawn and interpersonal conflict within the hotel, which threatens its future and the safety of everyone within it. Ultimately, Monáe and Lore critique exclusionary feminism and transphobia in making it the story’s driving force of conflict; this critique, however, falls short of cutting trans-exclusionary rhetoric to its core due to plot and perspective restrictions.

Perhaps the strongest story of the collection is the shortest and furthest removed from New Dawn. With “Timebox,” Monáe and Eve L. Ewing construct a tight narrative with an insular conflict and maintain a sense of high stakes. Raven and Akilah, two young Black women moving into their first apartment together, discover that once they enter their pantry and shut the door while alone, time on the outside of the room seemingly ceases to pass. With the use of beautiful and precise prose, Monáe and Ewing unearth and increase the tension between the two women around this simple premise. Though they share multiple identities, Raven grew up lacking time: to study, to work, to survive. By contrast, Akilah grew up wealthy but felt the need to provide time as a resource for a broader community. Their conflict is contained within the wall of the apartment yet has broader implications as the two must decide on the appropriate use for the room. Intricate and well-paced, “Timebox” leaves readers with an ending strong enough to give pause.

The next story in the collection, “Save Changes,” also has an excellent ending. Monáe and Yohanca Delgado tell the story of Amber, who, along with her sister Larry, is a social outcast due to their mother being a high-profile dirty computer whom New Dawn failed to cleanse. Despite the ambiguity of the story’s setting—New York City reads as post-apocalyptic and deserted, but the extent of New Dawn’s rule is hard to place—this remains one of the stories in which the consequences of being targeted by New Dawn feel most urgent. Now under constant watch, Amber attempts to keep her sister from being labeled a dirty computer but is introduced to a world of celebration and defiance by her instead. Having been given a larimar stone with the ability to turn back time by her late father, Amber must decide whether she will use it to maintain her family’s safety within the status quo or to upend the world as they know it. “Timebox” and “Save Changes” succinctly illustrate how within their world, time and memory become sources of power, which can be wielded for one’s own gain and to assimilate or to resist and head toward an alternate future.

“Timebox Altar(ed)” is an appropriate choice to close out the collection. Where “The Memory Librarian” follows Seshet deep into the obelisk, “Timebox Altar(ed)” follows a group of children into Freewheel, a ghost town outside of the obelisk’s gaze. Bug, mourning the loss of their mother taken by New Dawn, leads their brother and friends into the woods, where together, they build an altar allowing them to travel into their most desired futures. With the guidance of a mysterious but comforting character named Mx. Tangee, each child is moved by the possibilities they see when they enter the altar. Monáe and Sheree Renée Thomas expertly tie each child’s wishes for the future to their material conditions of poverty and neglect by New Dawn in the present, making this one of the most grounded stories of the collection. Filled to the brim with imagination, “Timebox Altar(ed)” richly represents hope: that a new world can be forged through dreams, as “beyond time and memory—where the computer cannot reach—is dreaming.”

Alma Sterling is a visual artist, writer, and graduate student in the Department of Literatures in English at Rutgers University. Their creative and scholarly work explores depictions of race and gender in comics/graphic narratives. Originally from the Bronx, NY, they now live in New Brunswick, NJ, with their dog.