Public Access Afterworld

By: Jane Schoenbrun

'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 . . . you read it and the world glints with secrets anew'
TORREY PETERS, author of Stag Dance and Detransition, Baby

On 12th June 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 analogue-to-digital transition. Beneath the static that follows, Erin catches a glimpse of a mysterious broadcast from a TV network called 'Public Access Afterworld'. Soon after that, she vanishes - changing the trajectory of David's life forever.

Fourteen 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 gradually a pattern emerges from the ocean of digital violence in the form of a young streamer, Jules, calling out the same words: Public Access Afterworld.

When Bethany ignores the guidance of her corporate overseers and sets out to rescue Jules, she begins an epic journey that sweeps from rural Texas to the heart of American darkness in 1940s Los Alamos - and all the way back to that basement where David and Erin first encountered a world at the edges of reality itself.©2026 Jane Schoenbrun (P)2026 Penguin Random House Audio

Critic reviews

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)

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, author of A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS and DEAD BUT DREAMING OF ELECTRIC SHEEP)

Praise for I Saw the TV Glow, written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun

'Jane Schoenbrun was born to make cult classics' GQ
'An atmosphere so intoxicating, it feels less like the creation of a movie and more that of an entire world' Guardian
'What's most effective, and staggering, is Schoenbrun's storytelling' New York Times