The Ephemera Collector A Novel
The Ephemera Collector, a novel by Stacy Nathaniel Jackson, is set to be published by Liveright Publishing Corporation in April 2025. This 320-page work unfolds in the year 2035, against the backdrop of Los Angeles County, where wildfire smoke permeates the atmosphere. The story follows Xandria Anastasia Brown, a curator at the Huntington Library, as she navigates her role in preserving African American ephemera while grappling with her own deteriorating health due to long COVID and other chronic conditions.
Readers will find Xandria immersed in her work, which includes organizing a significant exhibition and managing the challenges posed by her health and a corporate threat to the library. The narrative explores themes of memory, identity, and resilience, as Xandria relies on her adaptive technology and intuition to confront a faceless enemy. The Ephemera Collector delves into the intersection of personal and collective history, offering insights into the complexities of preserving cultural artifacts while facing contemporary struggles.
Official synopsis Publisher
The year is 2035, and Los Angeles County is awash in a tangelo haze of wildfire smoke. Xandria Anastasia Brown spends her days deep in the archives of the Huntington Library as the curator of African American Ephemera and associate curator of American Historical Manuscripts, supported by an array of AI personal assistants and health bots. Descended from a family of obsessive collectors who took part in the Great Migration, Xandria grew up immersed in African American ephemera and realia: boots worn by Negro Troopers during the Civil War, Black ATA tennis rackets, bandanas worn by the Crips….
Although Xandria’s work may preserve collective memory, she is losing a grasp on her own. Evren, her new health bot, won’t stop reminding her that her symptoms of long COVID are worsening; not to mention that severe asthma, chronic fatigue, grief, and worrying lapses in reality keep disrupting progress on a new Octavia E. Butler exhibition, cataloging the new Diwata Collection, and organizing the Huntington against a stealth corporate takeover. Then, one morning a colleague Xandria can’t place calls to wish her a happy birthday–and the library goes into an emergency lockdown.
Sequestered in the archive with only her adaptive technology and flickering intuition, Xandria fears that her life’s work is in danger–the Diwata Collection, a radical blueprint for humanity’s survival. Up against a faceless enemy and unsure of who her human or AI allies truly are, she must make a choice.
A lyrical and strikingly original saga, The Ephemera Collector announces Stacy Nathaniel Jackson as a singular new voice in fiction.
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