Public Access Afterworld 2026

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 “Dazzling and politically acute, Schoenbrun’s debut announces a major literary voice.”—*Kirkus Reviews* (starred review) “A dazzling story . . . a great American novel.”—*Publishers Weekly* (starred review) One of *Publishers Weekly*’s 10 Most Anticipated Books • One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Year: *The Boston Globe, Lit Hub*, *The Chicago Review of Books, The Bookseller*, *Reactor, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews*, and *Debutiful* ***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.