Posthuman Selves and Algorithmic Memory in the Digital Narratives of Jennifer Egan’s Fiction 10 5

Abstract

Jennifer Egan’s two interlinked novels - A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010) and The Candy House (2022) - exemplify how posthuman subjectivity and algorithmic memory reshape identity in the digital era. Goon Squad comprises twelve nonlinear, interwoven stories that together form a sprawling narrative network. This polyphonic form intentionally resists a single center and, as one critic notes, “gestures toward contemporary structures of posthumanist sociality”. The Candy House picks up these themes by imagining a technology (“Own Your Unconscious”) that lets users literally “digitise” and share their personal memories. In the novel, characters replay curated recollections on demand, dramatizing how memory has become externalized and algorithmically managed. In both texts, Egan shows identity not as an autonomous, continuous core but as a fragmented, networked process co-produced by data, media, and code. Posthumanism (Hayles, Haraway, Braidotti) reconceives the self as decentered and entangled with technology. or eample osi raidotti defines posthuman subjectivity as “distributed” across heterogeneous assemblages rather than located in an isolated individual. Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto similarly uses the cyborg metaphor to “break down” binaries between human and machine. As Marianne Hirsch observes, transmitting memory through machines (rather than through human relationships) would “fundamentally alter how we construct identity”. Egan’s narratives engage these paradigms: they illustrate how networked environments produce algorithmic memory and fragmented selves, aligning literary fiction with critical debates in digital humanities and information theory.