Public Access Afterworld

Public Access Afterworld

$39.60

Biographical Note: Jane Schoenbrun is an award-winning filmmaker and writer. Their films include I Saw the TV Glow and We're All Going to the World's Fair. Their newest film, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp...

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Description

Biographical Note:
Jane Schoenbrun is an award-winning filmmaker and writer. Their films include I Saw the TV Glow and We're All Going to the World's Fair. Their newest film, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma starring Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder, releases in 2026. Public Access Afterworld is their first novel.

Review Quotes:
" Public Access Afterworld is an immersive and chilling journey that I stayed up all night binge-reading. Schoenbrun's skill and confidence as a storyteller are made clear by the deft way they play with both genre and form as the book bends and warps across time and mediums. Adroitly beautiful, funny, and scathing, Public Access Afterworld is a book from a talented storyteller with much to say, who's not afraid to say it." --SenLinYu, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Alchemised

"A reality-warping epic about friendship, transformation, and the internet that stretches across decades and dimensions." --New York

"The mastermind behind I Saw the TV Glow is releasing their debut novel, and I couldn't be more excited. This is one to pre-order without even reading the publicity copy to hype you up." --Debutiful

"Constantly yanking the magic carpet out from under the reader's feet, this epic quest for the source of all television is psychedelic horror of the first order." --Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls

"Jane Schoenbrun has the literary voice I've been famished for. Public Access Afterworld gave me a vertiginous thrill I haven't encountered since David Mitchell; the kind of epic book that doesn't just warp reality on the page but goes on warping when you look up--you read it and the world glints with secrets anew." --Torrey Peters, author of Stag Dance and Detransition, Baby
"A thriller unlike any other . . . strange, urgent, utterly . . . hypnotic--once you start reading Public Access Afterworld, you won't stop." --Lev Grossman, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians

"A riot in novel form by an author with an utterly singular, original vision, Public Access Afterworld will leave you breathless and desperate for a sequel." --Kaliane Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of The Ministry of Time

"In Jane Schoenbrun's electric Public Access Afterworld the American dream is refracted through the lens of the history of television to show its true nightmare self. Thrilling, heart-wrenching, hilarious, visionary, and so damned smart, this novel is a major work from a major talent." --Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep

Publisher Marketing:
A mysterious realm on the other side of our screens. A dark force that draws victims into its static. The unlikely hero called to save them and herself from this electric hell. Public Access Afterworld is the profound, binge-all-night, headrush of a novel by the celebrated filmmaker of I Saw the TV Glow and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

"Beautiful, funny, and scathing . . . I stayed up all night binge-reading."--SenLinYu
"Gave me a vertiginous thrill I haven't encountered since David Mitchell."--Torrey Peters
"Psychedelic horror of the first order."--Grady Hendrix
"Heart-wrenching, hilarious, visionary, and so damned smart, this novel is a major work by a major writer."--Paul Tremblay
"Utterly hypnotic."--Lev Grossman

One of Publisher Weekly's 10 Most Anticipated Books - One of Debutiful's Most Anticipated Debuts

Find the receiver. Make it real.

At 5:35 p.m. on September 3, 1988, Dallas weatherman Ray "Can You Say Sunshine" Davino makes passing reference to Public Access Afterworld during a rambling monologue, right before he puts a gun to his head on live television and pulls the trigger.

On June 12, 2009, David Sawyer and Erin Morrison, two lonely, TV-obsessed suburban teens who might be falling in love, gather in Erin's basement to watch TV's analog-to-digital transition. But in the static that follows, Erin witnesses surreal broadcasts from a pirate TV network called Public Access Afterworld, and their lives are changed forever.

Seventeen years later, Bethany Peters toils through the night shift at megacorp GlobalVill's bleak Austin campus. A trans content moderator, she spends her evenings reviewing an endless stream of horrific videos. But then a young streamer begins to crop up in her feed calling out to Public Access Afterworld.

But what is Public Access Afterworld?

Spanning decades and realities, with an unforgettable ensemble of outcasts and nerds--especially the messy but wholly relatable Bethany, who must overcome paranoia and self-doubt to transform into a hero of our times-- Public Access Afterworld will have you reading through the night and rooting for its characters to survive. A mesmerizing mash-up of speculative fiction, horror, and conspiracy, it marks the arrival of a major new force in contemporary fiction by a groundbreaking filmmaker who's been compared to David Lynch and Paul Thomas Anderson.