Death of the Author

The novel flashes back to the wedding of Zelu’s younger sister Amarachi in Trinidad and Tobago. Chinyere taunts Zelu for choosing to forego makeup, but Zelu explains that she doesn’t want anyone to pay any attention to her at Amarachi’s wedding. She doesn’t like the idea of marriage.

While there, Zelu gets a call from Brittany, her boss at her university’s English department. Brittany has received a complaint from one of Zelu’s adjunct writing workshop students. During their most recent workshop, Zelu insulted a student’s writing after he turned in an incomprehensible piece and responded arrogantly to Zelu’s feedback. Zelu is fired from her job. Later, she also learns that her novel manuscript has been rejected by a small press, which means that its chances for publication are now extremely unlikely.

During the reception, an uncle encourages Zelu to get married, calling her “crippled” in the process. This reminds Zelu of how much her family underestimates her, both because of her writing career and because she is the only family member with a disability. When a masquerade dances through the reception, Zelu refuses to get out of their way. The performers call attention to Zelu, embarrassing her. Her feelings are exacerbated by hearing judgmental gossip between her mother and uncle.

A South African man approaches Zelu and introduces himself as Msizi. He compliments her beauty and invites her to look at the water. They have sex on the beach, and while she has difficulty experiencing the physical sensation, she observes that her body enjoys it. Afterward, they talk about Msizi’s tech start-up. Zelu has a sudden panic attack, and Msizi helps her back to her room.

Zelu thinks of all the bad things that happened to her that day, culminating in her family’s perception that she is a “spinster” who is “broken.” She weeps for herself and then uses marijuana to calm down. She opens her laptop and starts writing, composing a story about rusted robots.

Zelu’s story is set in a posthuman world, where people have been replaced by robots. Without humans to program them, the robots are left to search for a purpose. They break out into factions as some of them use a variety of old data to generate their motivations.

The story is narrated by a robot called Ankara who is in the Hume faction. Humes are robots who value their human heritage. Ankara has devoted herself to the discovery of stories, making her a Scholar. While Scholars love reading stories, they are incapable of creating stories as organically powerful as those made by humans. Ankara’s thirst for stories brings her to a terrifying discovery.

Zelu’s story becomes the novel Rusted Robots, which she writes feverishly through the night. The Humes are antagonized by NoBodies, artificial intelligence programs that believe they are superior to the other robot factions. When Zelu returns to Chicago, she continues working on the novel, no longer having to devote herself to her job.

Zelu focuses on maintaining her remaining savings while writing her novel. She sees Msizi when he visits Chicago, and he offers her a beta version of Yebo, the personal assistant app he is developing. Zelu contrasts the experience of writing her new book with her previous one, a literary novel. When Zelu’s electricity is cut off, she is forced to move back in with her parents.

Brittany, Zelu’s former boss, contacts her to organize a moderated meeting between her and her former students. Zelu is frustrated that Brittany is doing nothing to support her. When Brittany makes a racist comment, Zelu backs away from their dialogue. At home, Zelu’s mother, Omoshalewa, asks about Zelu’s work prospects. Zelu prioritizes her novel.

In an interview, Zelu’s father, Secret, credits himself for Zelu’s love of stories. As a college student, Secret worked for a fishing company. He often saw dolphins circling his trawler when he went out to sea. While his colleagues expressed their desire to catch a dolphin, Secret dove into the water to swim with them. He gave up his attempt to catch one after recognizing “[p]eople” in the eyes of the dolphins. From that day on, Zelu’s father became known as “Secret Salt” because it was believed that he had salt water for blood. This became one of Zelu’s favorite stories, especially after her accident. Secret believes that it emboldened her.

In Rusted Robots, while searching for information nodes outside Lagos, Ankara comes across a signal drawing her to a book of prime importance. Ankara finds the source of the signal within the ruins of Lagos: a spider-like robot called Udide, whose form was inspired by a mythological creature. 

Udide (who uses they/them pronouns) is a Scholar like Ankara. Before they came to Lagos, they searched for stories while hiding from Ghosts, a subset of NoBodies who believe that they have transcended the need for a physical form. Ghosts hate Humes, which made it necessary for Udide to hide in tunnels when they reached Lagos.

Udide sought insight into their purpose from Chargers, robots who could leave the planet because they derived energy from the cosmos. They befriended a Charger named Oji, who confided that some of the Chargers had recently come upon a comet made of an unknown metal. The Chargers mined it once they learned that the metal could withstand the heat of stars. Oji and several Chargers wanted to use their modified metal skin to explore the center of the sun, and Oji asked Udide if they could maintain an audio link to record the Chargers’ findings.

The Chargers entered the sun, but it destabilized them. They began singing a song of destruction. On the audio recording, Udide heard the song, which was about bringing a joyful light to destroy the entire Earth. Udide named the new zombie-like Chargers “Trippers.”

Udide warns Ankara that the Trippers will arrive on Earth in less than three years. They instruct Ankara to pass the warning to the Hume leaders in Cross River City so that they can warn other robot factions.

Zelu books a ride on an autonomous self-driving car as research for her novel. Omoshalewa is concerned that the service isn’t safe, so Zelu tries to reassure her. Throughout the ride, Zelu is relieved that she doesn’t have to deal with any people, least of all her family, who often make her feel like her requests for car rides are a burden. The car reaches its destination, and Zelu finds relief in the idea that an automated vehicle can come to her anytime she wants, as though it were an extension of herself.

After over a year of writing, Zelu finishes the final draft of Rusted Robots. She weeps with joy and sends Msizi the manuscript. Early the next morning, he calls her and reports that he has already finished reading her novel, which he loves. She knows that he is being honest because Msizi hated her last novel. She sends the novel to her agent the next morning.

Zelu shares the news with her family. They do not care, wondering instead how her job applications are going. Zelu retreats to her room.

The next morning, Zelu’s agent expresses his overwhelming enthusiasm for the novel. Over the next day, he sets up a bidding war between publishers, getting her an incredibly high advance. The book deal also includes an obligation to write sequels and an equally lucrative film option.

Zelu starts working with an editor on Rusted Robots. She decides to tell her family the news on a Saturday, when all her siblings are visiting the house. She smokes marijuana to allay her anxiety about sharing the news. Amarachi catches her and tells their parents about it. Zelu tries to defuse her mother’s anger by telling the family about the book deal. They don’t believe her, thinking that she is speaking under the influence of drugs. 

Later that night, Zelu’s brother Tolu checks in on her and sympathizes with her annoyance. Zelu tells him that her news is real. Soon, words of congratulation trickle in from the other members of her family.

Several weeks later, a journalist named Seth Daniels comes to interview Zelu. He asks her about her Nigerian heritage. Zelu brings up falling out of a tree when she was 12 years old—the accident that caused her paraplegia. She also mentions her childhood aspiration to become an astronaut. Seth asks her about her teaching career, implying that he has spoken to Brittany. Zelu becomes anxious and brings the interview to an abrupt end. The article comes out two weeks later with no mention of her teaching career.

Seth senses that there is a bigger lead to follow with Zelu, so he starts interviewing everyone in her family.

In an interview, Amarachi talks about whether Zelu conforms to the stereotypes of second-generation Nigerian Americans. First, she points out that while most of the women in their family have experienced the “Cooking Moment,” enabling them to develop their culinary skills in Nigerian cuisine, Zelu never had a Cooking Moment. Omoshalewa always cooked for Zelu, who was never encouraged to cook for herself.

Next, Amarachi points out that every Nigerian American has a “Goat Experience,” watching someone slay a goat for a meal. Zelu always tells the story of her Goat Experience with total revulsion, calling it a vile experience.

Finally, everyone in her family is “Easy” and “Noisy,” except for Zelu, who tends to get anxious whenever her family members start arguing. In one case, Zelu experienced a panic attack when Chinyere and Amarachi got into an argument. Amarachi admits that she often triggers Zelu’s sensitivities, but she also criticizes Zelu for having a hard time processing reality. She regrets that she did not help Zelu express herself more freely around their family. Whenever she reads Rusted Robots, she can see all the things Zelu repressed from their family.