Memory Memory Go Away by Christopher William Selna

Reviewed by Eric Mayrhofer

Christopher Selna explores the power, trauma, and the cost of mental health in the thought-provoking gothic cyberpunk novel Memory, Memory, Go Away.

What if you could change your life by erasing your memories? You could ease heartache, as in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. You could control nations, as in The Memory Police. Or you could wield it like a drug that promises to make life better, even if all it does is numb and crack the mind. Christopher Selna explores all those takes in Memory, Memory, Go Away, a gothic cyberpunk novel with big ideas, sprawling worldbuilding, and tons of promise.

It’s hard to say the book follows any one character. It could follow Malcolm, a journalist interviewing Addison Cain, the reclusive oddball founder of Memory, Memory, Go Away, a company that can “heal…mental oppression without resorting pills or wasting…time with prayers.” The book could also be a circuitous character study of Addison himself, examining how his own trauma led him to create a company that manipulates memories to heal by way of anecdotes from the downtrodden who come to idolize him—even as his pursuits start to crush him.

At large, though, Selna’s book is a curious reflection of the United States in a fractured, sci-fi mirror. In this version, where mega-corporations (and the Church, in league with them) vie against Cain’s innovation to stop it from “stealing their business and faith,” where these superpowers thrive because “mental illness, or worse, suicide, had increased substantially when pharmaceutical drugs became the norm for anyone experiencing the slightest episode of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other ailments of the mind.” Out of context, it sounds like the kind of statement connected to a hastily torn news clipping via red string on someone’s cork board. Taken as a whole, the book chronicles why something like Cain’s memory wiper would be so tempting in the here and now where, to some, poverty, violence, and their associated traumas can feel endemic.

A lofty bildungsroman meets mighty speculative allegory with hefty worldbuilding in Memory, Memory, Go Away. The book spends pages laying out how corporations are truly the de facto leaders of a reorganized America: which businesses are feuding, how they control and shape infrastructure, and how all that trickles down to the way ordinary citizens move through everyday life. Every detail of this grim future world plays a role in immersing and enthralling its readers.

The same is not always true of the characterization. Malcolm, for instance, begins the book as almost pathologically happy. He himself describes it as “My blistering happiness” and says, “I don’t remember a time in all of my life when I wasn’t happy.” Those elements are great; they immediately signal that something isn’t right, and that Malcolm is destined for a journey leading to disillusionment (if not somewhere worse). The pasted-on-smile tone is also great because it makes readers wonder if Malcolm really is alright, and whether he himself knows the answer to that question.

However, when faced with crowds of protesters early on (even before any of Cain’s major revelations come forth), Malcolm says, “My task at hand became daunting,” and, “My panic returned.” These are small contradictions, but for readers who will enjoy this book—those who love dense worlds and dark sci-fi that asks hard questions—a more subtle and immersive approach that juxtaposes the daunting surroundings with Malcom’s initial, unbeatable optimism, might paint a more evocative picture that something literally isn’t right in his head.

While that type of issue pops up throughout the novel, it doesn’t stop Memory, Memory, Go Away from being a truly unique read or make its questions and commentary any less potent. Selna’s book does what any good sci-fi must. It makes audiences ponder how its futuristic philosophies exist in the world we occupy now, and for creative debate alone, readers should check it out.

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