The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae

Source of book: I own this

 

Janelle Monae is one of our modern day polymaths - they are an award-winning musician, an actor, and a writer. 

 

The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer is linked with two other works by Monae: their album Dirty Computer, and their short film of the same name. All of these have as their themes issues of race, sexuality and gender, and totalitarianism. In part, they were inspired by the ongoing efforts by the American Right to silence the voices of people of color and queer people - such as the efforts in Florida and Texas to ban books, and the teaching of the existence of systemic racism or LGBTQ people. 

 

There are five stories plus an introduction in the book, the first two of which approach novella length. The stories all take place in the same dystopian future, although the characters and story arcs do not overlap. 

 

The basic framing is a United States in the future, when technology and humanity have merged into a new form of fascism, led by the totalitarian-utopian New Dawn. It is unclear exactly the nature of this entity. Is it government? Religion? A giant corporation? And perhaps that is the point - all three have merged into the same thing.

 

New Dawn seeks, as all totalitarian-utopian systems do, to bring utopia through violently produced total conformity. In this case, largely through purging the memories of people. If they cannot remember, they can do what the should without baggage. Or something like that. The theory is a bit murky. Which is pretty realistic for cultic ideologies in general. 

 

What isn’t murky is who is suspect in this world - the “dirty computers.” Who naturally need cleaning. As in our own world, people of color, and black people in particular are viewed with suspicion. But even more than that, LGBTQ people are highly suspect. And if you are black and queer, well…

 

Within this world, a variety of characters occupy the margins. Some are clinging to respectability. Others are blurring the lines. Others have gone all the way to the dark side (so to speak). Still others are in that liminal space heading one direction or another. 

 

Many - indeed most - of the characters are queer. Some are non-binary, like Monae. Others are transgender. Most are somewhere on the gay to bisexual spectrum. And most are female - indeed all of the protagonists are either female or on the fem side of non-binary. This is, I am sure, intentional. 

 

The book takes for granted that queer people exist, and that they are a natural part of humanity. But, like in our own world, they are hated by many for being…different. 

 

The stories can be dark at times, but overwhelmingly have an undertone of hope. This is something we white people often struggle with. We see the encroaching darkness and tend to feel hopeless and overwhelmed. Because we have so long been the dominant group, and are used to being free and prosperous and taken seriously, the prospect of being subject to fascism is terrifying. But for black people and queer people here in the United States, they have never been free in that way. Not free from lynching and hate-based murder. Not free from discrimination. Not free to say whatever they want without risking their safety. So this is nothing new.

 

I can’t remember where I read it, but someone pointed out that the United States has from its inception taken fascist approaches to certain issues. Starting with the Native American Genocide. So Trumpism is nothing new. It just hasn’t been directed at most white people. 

 

This isn’t to say that the US as it stands now is the equivalent of Nazi Germany, or Pinochet’s Chile. It just hasn’t been as universally free as we like to pretend.

 

And thus, while we white folks aren’t used to having to be part of a resistance movement, people of color always have, as have queer people. So, we should expect to hear some amused “welcome to the club, cracker” directed at us. 

 

All of the stories were co-written with other established - although young - science fiction authors. Each of these writers is either female or non-binary, and none are white. 

 

I am not sure how the writing was split between Monae and their co-writers other than that each co-writer worked on one story. There are some differences and similarities in the styles between each story, but nothing that one can specifically point to as belonging to one particular co-author. I suppose just like in the stories themselves, everything good is a collaborative effort. I’ll note each co-author as I discuss each story. 

 

The Memory Librarian (with Alaya Dawn Johnson)

 

The title story is the story of Seshet, the rare black woman working for New Dawn in that capacity - she stores and archives memories. Her world is turned upside down when she is introduced to Alethia, a member of a rebel group, who subsequently becomes Seshet’s lover. But time has a weird way of working in these stories, and memories are rarely what they seem. 

 

Among other themes in this story is the question that is often faced by members of marginalized groups in our society: where is the line between working for a better society and collaborating with evil? I imagine that many black cops struggle with this question in their own careers. 

 

One scene in this story stands out to me. Alethia takes Seshet to what is essentially a rebel gay bar. (Hey, like…Stonewall?) It is a rather alien experience, even for someone like Seshet, who still retains some of her memories from before. 

 

After midnight, the bar is overwhelmed with a new crowd, diverse in a way she’s not used to seeing in downtown Little Delta (and certainly not in the corridors of the obelisk): the oldest must be in his seventies and the youngest still a teenager; all shades of brown, Black, and beige; men in dresses and women in sharp-cut suits and others who defy any gender categorization at all. She pretends not to notice. With New Dawn, any gender nonconformity is enough to get you a deviant code appended to your number - dirty computer, recommended for urgent cleaning - and she doesn’t want to flag anyone tonight. 

 

So much of this theme resonates with me. The religious subculture I was raised in was freaked out about any bending of gender. And indeed, a form of gender nonconformity was the main reason my mother rejected my wife and later my queer kids. It is a central core belief of fascism too, of course, and of fundamentalist religions around the world. Woman, know thy place. 

 

But we all know that these rules are for the peons. Leadership can do whatever the fuck they want - including prey on children - without consequence. 

 

Clean citizens of New Dawn aren’t supposed to enjoy same-gender love, but she’s hardly the first official to bend those rules; she’s not even the only one in Little Delta. 

 

Another theme in this story - and indeed the book as a whole - is the meaning of memory. Monae says they were inspired by Phillip K. Dick’s writings about the unreliability of memory in creating the specific world of memory manipulation in this book. They also explore how we manipulate our own memories. 

 

No one remembers everything. And what’s too painful to remember, you can simply choose to forget. All Seshet does is use their own mental blocks as the bulwark against whatever she wants to hide from their consciousness. It’s like a wall of fire in one of Terry’s old video games with a treasure safely hidden inside. Here’s the trick: if the flames burn on the fuel of your own shame, not even mortal terror can make you brave the heat. 

 

We all know people who have done this. (My parents are in deep denial about how things went down in our relationship, for example, claiming things I experienced never happened.) But also, if we are honest, we know this protection mechanism works for us too. 

 

Eventually, Seshet meets up with one of the leaders of a resistance group, Doc Young. He greets her with a “Welcome to the upside-down kingdom.” This was a bit startling, but also entirely appropriate. 

 

As an aspiring Christ-follower, I know what he proclaimed was exactly that: an upside-down kingdom. One not based on hierarchy but on mutuality. One that was made up of the marginalized and downtrodden and excluded the rich and the religious bigots. Exactly the opposite of the Christian Nationalist movement of today. 

 

If Christ were here today, he would one hundred percent be hanging out with the people of color, the homeless, the addicted, the LGBTQ people. And calling white conservative “christians” out as brood of vipers and whitewashed tombs. And he would be murdered by them all over again. 

 

One of the macguffins so to speak in this story is an antidote to the mind wiping drug Nevermind. With memories precious and difficult to retain, the ability to recover what was lost is a huge thing. And threatens the entire existence of New Dawn. 

 

“Now, is that a drug or a bomb?” 

 

By analogy, this is why the right wing is so terrified of books by people of color, women, and LGBTQ people. (The overwhelming majority of the targeted books are by these groups.) The memories, the stories, which are a collective memory put down on paper and shared with others, threaten the entire edifice of white male cishet supremacy. 

 

Nevermind (with Danny Lore)

 

Danny Lore may be the best known of the co-writers in the book, at least to me. Not that I have read any of their stuff, but the name has been around a bit. 

 

This particular story, written by two non-binary people, is all about a question that has roiled even the progressive subculture. What is a woman? And who gets to decide that? 

 

For the right wing, of course, these questions are dismissed as stupid. A woman is a human who was assigned that sex at birth, and now has to live with that. 

 

But for the rest of us, particularly if we have had regular interaction with intersex or transgender people - or even have explored the actual science of sex and gender with an open mind - know that the question is a lot more complicated. 

 

This story involves a commune at an old hotel in the desert. Its residents are marginalized rebel sorts who are “women and women-aligned” as the book puts it. They hide from and defend themselves against New Dawn, and work mutually to support themselves through salvage and handcrafts. 

 

But who is a woman? 

 

The colony is betrayed when a cisgender TERF (for lack of a better term) decides to sacrifice a transgender member to New Dawn. Because she isn’t a “real” woman, and thus doesn’t belong. 

 

If you can’t link this to current events and public figures, well. (And note that the issue is gender - and racial - non-conformity - plenty of ciswomen fail to meet the definition of the bigots and are targeted for slander and abuse.) 

 

For a good bit of the story, the identity of the turncoat is unknown. Suspicion falls on various people for different reasons. The transgender character has unique mechanical ability, and thus would be the most able to fake a breach of the defenses. The former New Dawn member who escaped knows people on the other side. But neither of these is the traitor - and the lack of knowledge leads to fear…and other emotions.

 

She looked over at the other occupants of the Pynk Hotel. Fear stabbed her momentarily, but as was typically the case with her, it mutated quickly to righteous anger. It could be any of them…

 

While all of the stories use the metaphor of “dirt” - that is, contamination, uncleanness - this one perhaps is the most explicit. The residents of the Pynk Hotel are literally grounded through the dirt in an unspoiled cave. Dirt is their identity, and that is a double edged sword. 

 

Zen had once explained to Jane how violence from blushounds and guards wasn’t dirty by New Dawn’s standards. Dirt needed to be cleansed, and dirt was who you were, how you didn’t fit into New Dawn’s vision of the world. 

 

There is a lot of truth in this too. All of us are to a degree made up of our various flaws - or even differences. Yet these are exactly what fascism seeks to “cleanse.” It is no coincidence that this eventually leads to ethnic cleansing. Trump’s language about brown-skinned people “poisoning our blood” having “bad genes” and needing to be cleansed from our nation is textbook fascism. But the appeal of this to Evangelicals also comes from their obsession with “sin” and “cleanness.” 

 

Christ took direct aim at that worldview by insisting that the “unclean” of the world were the ones entering the kingdom, not the supposedly clean people who in reality were full of dead men’s bones. 

 

The vision of the Pynk Hotel - and indeed every resistance group in the book - is inspiring. Really, it is what the decent human beings throughout time have sought. 

 

We could create art and make love and help others do the same.

 

In contrast, the person who is eventually revealed as the traitor is obsessed with policing the boundary between Us and Them. “We cannot keep that outsider in the Cave!” 

 

“You were working to protect your own,” Jane said decisively. “But you decided everyone who didn’t fit your womanhood wasn’t worth protecting. Including me, I guess, because I damn sure don’t.” 

 

This line was stunning to me. It expresses precisely how my mother treated my wife, and how she drove her away from our family. Because my wife didn’t fit her precise definition of womanhood, she was not worth protecting. And so it goes…

 

Timebox (with Eve L. Ewing)

 

Unlike the other stories, this one has a very personal focus. A lesbian couple move in to their first apartment together, but things go wrong. 

 

They come from very different backgrounds. Raven is a nursing student who grew up in poverty. For her, there is never enough time to do everything. She is in school, she has to work to support herself, and she pretty much does all the household stuff. 

 

Akilah, on the other hand, grew up wealthy, and still has an income stream which frees her to work mostly as an activist and artist. And she acts like the man in the relationship - and that is not a complement. Content to let Raven do the housework, she fails to understand how overbooked Raven really is. 

 

Thus, when they discover that a room in the apartment has the ability to stop time, they fight over whether it should be kept secret at least until Raven finishes school - it is a game changer for her ability to do everything - or whether it should be used by the entire community. 

 

It is an ethical dilemma in a small narrative, very personal and intimate. 

 

Save Changes (with Yohanca Delgado)

 

This is a time travel story, more or less. There is a magic crystal which will reverse time once and only once for its owner. 

 

Amber and her sister Larry live with their mother, a former rebel leader. She was wiped of her memories by New Dawn, but something went wrong, leaving her an insane shell of her former self. Their father has died, so they are young people left essentially orphaned, and also outcast by society. 

 

Larry ventures out and becomes part of a resistance group, which meets in a forgotten corner of New York City. She convinces Amber (who has become essentially the adult in the family now) to go with her, and Amber’s horizons are expanded. But a raid leads to discovery, and the family has to act to avoid incarceration and wiping. 

 

There is a particular line in the story that struck me. 

 

The system worked because people gathered in the shady parts of the city, blighted places New Dawn didn’t think worth regularly patrolling, and the goal was to avoid bringing attention to them. The lucky thing, Larry and said, was that Black and brown neighborhoods like Harlem and Hamilton Heights were full of blind spots, magical places where you could make all the noise you wanted. 

 

Hey, kind of like our own world. Science Fiction, after all, isn’t really about what could be, but what is now and how that extrapolates. 

 

Timebox Altar(ed) (with Sheree Renee Thomas)

 

The final story in the book is about hope for the future. A group of four children, each orphaned in some way, living in a blighted town somewhere in middle America, discover a magical forest and the remains of the last railroad. 

 

The most mystical one creates an altar (or an ark?) out of the garbage. A mysterious person appears - a shaman from the future perhaps? And they guide the children to use the ark to travel to a possible future and learn about themselves. 

 

As a result, each is able to dream of making the world a better place in the post- that will follow the apocalyptic now. 

 

The theme is found in one line, and I think it is important to hang on to in our far too “interesting” of times:

 

Hope is greater than fear. 

 

And really, that is what is needed. We have no guarantee things will be okay. We have no guarantee we won’t be murdered for being different. Evil is real in the world, and as it always has, it is coming from those who fear difference and change and seek “safety” in conformity and hierarchy. 

 

But in all times, there have been those who dared hope of a better future, and brought it to pass in large and small ways. 

 

That is ultimately what this book is about. Whatever the future holds, those of us with hope and human decency must band together and work toward that better tomorrow, whether we succeed or not. 

 

I don’t read a lot of science fiction, although this year has been pretty good for it. However, this one is a good one, whether you are into the genre or not.