The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer

by Janelle Monáe

Hardcover, 2022

Status

Available

Call number

PS3613.O52266

Publication

Harper Voyager (2022), 336 pages

Description

"Whoever controls our memories controls the future. Janelle Monáe and an incredible array of talented collaborating creators have written a collection of tales comprising the bold vision and powerful themes that have made Monáe such a compelling and celebrated storyteller. Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts-as a means of self-conception-could be controlled or erased by a select few. And whether human, A.I., or other, your life and sentience was dictated by those who'd convinced themselves they had the right to decide your fate. That was until Jane 57821 decided to remember and break free. Expanding from that mythos, these stories fully explore what it's like to live in such a totalitarian existence...and what it takes to get out of it. Building off the traditions of speculative writers such as Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, Becky Chambers, and Nnedi Okorafor-and filled with the artistic genius and powerful themes that have made Monáe a worldwide icon in the first place-The Memory Librarian serves readers tales grounded in the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, but also reaching through to the worlds of memory and time within, and the stakes and power that exists there"--… (more)

Media reviews

Her Grammy-nominated third album, the joyously vibrant collection of pop bangers “Dirty Computer,” was accompanied by an “emotion picture.” The Hugo Award-nominated short film brought to life the fully formed world around Monáe’s record, introducing audiences to a dystopian near-future
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surveillance state where queer people, people of color and all who don’t conform are considered “dirty computers” and hunted down to be corrected. It is this world that Monáe builds on in her first book, “The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer,” a collection of short stories that explore the power of memory in liberation.... The Afrofuturist collection feeds both Monáe’s fan base, which will be hungry to delve deeper into her work, and sci-fi fans looking for another book in the burgeoning Black speculative fiction genre.
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4 more
By reframing aspects of social life and identity, which can often feel convoluted and heavy, in a heightened, dystopian context, Monáe reveals the simplicity of our shared humanity. “The Memory Librarian” shows us the future can be an unnerving reflection of our unexamined vices, but we can
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also plant the seeds for a brighter tomorrow.
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Inspired by the alienation and oppression that artificial intelligence faces in these fictional worlds, Monáe channels her own experiences of estrangement as a queer, working-class Black woman into lush and theatrical songs about love under siege by an invasive state.... “The Memory Librarian”
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offers five windows into an authoritarian world in which social deviants — almost all of them queer, Black, poor women — are relentlessly hunted and persecuted. The hunters are New Dawn, a nebulous “techno-nationalist” outfit that manages a sprawling surveillance operation.... There’s so little explanation of the basic mechanisms of New Dawn’s rule that the downtrodden main characters are deprived of agency and nuance. Their domestic and internal struggles, though rendered with meticulous attention to queer experiences and concerns, have no meaningful connection to their material circumstances.
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In her debut collection, musician and actress Monáe collaborates with a different writer for every story to explore a world defined by some people's resistance to a dangerous surveillance state in which memories are currency.... Studded with references to Monáe's album Dirty Computer (2018), the
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book is a clever adaptation of music to a new form. Emotionally raw and with a wholehearted love for people, these stories will make readers long to forge deeper human connections by sharing and holding one another's memories. A celebration of queer and Afrofuturist science fiction saluting creativity in difference.
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In this moving, triumphant collection, singer Monáe returns to the dystopian world of her Dirty Computer concept album and short film. These five sci-fi shorts, each written with a different coauthor, explore the consequences of a totalitarian regime that, in pursuit of a pure society, monitors
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its citizens’ identities, thoughts, and relationships and scrubs clean the memories and personhoods of those who are labeled deviant.... Though a special treat for Dirty Computer fans, readers won’t need to be familiar with the album to marvel at the big ideas, riveting action, and hopeful message here. This is a knockout.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member Othemts
Musician, actor, and fashion icon Janelle Monáe adds author to her many skills with this collection of stories rooted in the dystopian future world previously explored in her music. Each story is co-written with another talented Black author. The stories are set in a near-future authoritarian
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state called New Dawn where people live under constant surveillance, have their memories harvested, and those who don't conform - especially LGBTQ people and people of color - are classified as "Dirty Computers."

These stories include that of Seshet the memory librarian, a high ranking official in New Dawn, who begins to explore life on the "wrong side of town" with a new transgender partner. A commune of women who've found refuge from New Dawn at a place called Pynk Hotel discover a traitor in their midst. A lesbian couple discover a room in their house outside of time with each responding to it differently. And a family are able to travel one by one into a future where they find they've been liberated giving them hope to make it a reality.

It's an interesting collection of sci-fi/Afrofuturist stories that very much parallels our real world struggles. The stories can be didactic in their messaging but honestly sometimes need to be told bluntly. While this type of fiction is not typically something I would enjoy - and I'll confess that some elements went over my head - I am glad that I read this book and would recommend it to people who like this genre and fans of Monáe.
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LibraryThing member mahsdad
A half star only to indicate that it was a DNF for me. I tried, made it thru the first couple stories, but it just wasn't connecting with me. Too many books, Too little time, time to move on.
LibraryThing member DarthDeverell
Janelle Monáe’s The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer features five short stories that Monáe wrote in collaboration with Yohanca Delgado, Eve L. Ewing, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Danny Lore, and Sheree Renée Thomas. The stories are inspired by Monáe’s 2018 album, Dirty Computer,
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and the short film of the same name. They focus on a futuristic totalitarian society – called New Dawn – that compels its citizens to think and act like it wants, using technology to erase memories, reprogram individuals, and quash divergence, specifically in gender expression. There is also an element of white technocratic supremacy underpinning everything New Dawn does. The first story, titled “The Memory Librarian” and which Monáe co-wrote with Johnson, focuses on a queer black woman working for New Dawn as a librarian who deletes and manipulates others’ memories. When she learns that her lover is rebelling against these controls, the librarian begins to question her role in New Dawn’s agenda. “Nevermind,” co-written with Lore, focuses on the Pynk Hotel, a refuge for women and fem-aligned people who have escaped from New Dawn and want to be free from New Dawn’s gender controls. Monáe co-wrote “Timebox” with Ewing, focusing on two women trying to make a life together despite their different backgrounds. Raven wants to feel like she isn’t always struggling to keep up and having to budget her time in advance; Akilah is an artist who thinks about community solutions without noticing how Raven needs individual support. They find that the closet in their apartment exists outside of the normal flow of time, but their different ideas on how to use it cause further conflict between them. In “Save Changes,” co-written with Delgado, two sisters take care of their mother, who was reprogrammed by New Dawn and lives under house arrest, showing symptoms of senility following the reprogramming. Amber tries to play things safe, but her sister Larry wants to find ways to live free. Their father gave Amber a pendant that will supposedly allow her to travel back in time, but she can only use it once and won’t know how far back she can go until she uses it. Finally, in Monáe and Thomas’ “Timebox Altar(ed),” a group of children live near the ghost town of Freewheel. They go wandering in the woods, meet an old woman named Mx. Tangee, and construct a fort that allows them to view the future they can create if they enter it with intention.

Monáe’s work touches on themes that are at once current and ongoing in much of dystopian science-fiction, specifically the concept of controlling memories or reprogramming people. While books like Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, George Orwell’s 1984, and Lowis Lowry’s The Giver all focused on similar ideas, Monáe’s work feels particularly prescient as states such as Texas and Florida seek to control what people learn, which books they can read, and whose stories are told. This similarly evokes Philip K. Dick’s focus on memory such as in his novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Like other dystopian science-fiction stories, Monáe’s characters often have names that blend generic identities with numbers, such as Jane 57821 in “Nevermind,” while others take back their power by naming themselves or demonstrate that they live outside of New Dawn’s controls by having their family names intact. This resembles Orwell or even George Lucas’s first film, THX 1138. Monáe’s focus on the intersectionality of race and gender – and how a totalitarian state would target both – highlights the current battles in which conservatives seek to legislate away people whose race or gender does not align with their definition of America. Recent authors with similar focuses include Tochi Onyebuchi, whose 2022 novel Goliath touches on the roles of the surveillance state and which groups are left behind during technological “advancement.” One does not need to have listened to Monáe’s Dirty Computer album or watched her 2018 film to appreciate this short story collection, but the three works do go hand-in-hand to explore these themes and deepen the reader/listener/viewer’s appreciation of the others.
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Awards

Ignyte Award (Shortlist — 2023)
LibraryReads (Monthly Pick — April 2022)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2022-04-19

Physical description

336 p.; 9.5 inches

ISBN

0063070871 / 9780063070875

Local notes

Signed
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