Public Access Afterworld

by Jane Schoenbrun

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.

Find the receiver. Make it real.

At 5:35pm on September 3rd, 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 12th, 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 mashup 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.

Genres: Horror, Queer, Fiction, Science Fiction, LGBT, Transgender, Adult

608 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication October 27, 2026

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Renee Godding]

No clue what it’s about. I just read “by the creator of I Saw The Glow” and I don’t need any more information. Let’s go.

[Kyle]

I need this yesterday.

[Sam Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um. I need some time to write a full review bc I am in SHOCK. 11/5 stars. (May 16, 2026)

Okay, review edit (May 20, 2026) -- I truly needed to let this sit for 4 days to try to process that outcome and my emotions —like, will there be a sequel, or is that up to my own interpretation???

I am absolutely ASTOUNDED and thankful to Hogarth Books, the lovely Jane Schoenbrun, and NetGalley for advanced access to this TWISTED analog horror before it shocks the public on October 27, 2026.

Public Access Afterworld is a place that exists underneath all the static of your television's regularly scheduled programming. It traps its crooked inhabitants in a creativity-farming hub that eliminates their physical being from our plane for the rest of eternity... fun.

Our assumed main character, David Sawyer, is on a quest to rescue his best friend, Erin Morrison, from Public Access Afterworld after she was taken by the static decades ago. In an attempt to locate those who could travel to this mystical realm, he gathers a unique group of followers and somehow attains "cult-leader" status as a result of his eccentric views.

Halfway across the country, we're introduced to Bethany Peters, a trans woman who's still trying to find herself and escape her sexless relationship and dead-end job. That dead-end job, however, has a connection to the PAA, and it's only a matter of time before the lore of this evil corporation reveals its true intentions to "save" the world???

GOSH DANGIT. I feel like that's all I can say without giving away too much. Each and every twist left me needing to pick my jaw up off the ground time and time again. I am SHOOK, and obsessed.

[Emily]

NEEEEEED to read this novel by my own personally perfect horror film director <3

[Ruxandra Grrr]

Excuse me, a Jane Schoenbrun NOVEL? Double blessed, since we're also getting another JS movie this year, with Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson??

[alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where do I even start?

I will admit that while I was really anticipating this book because I loved both of Jane’s films, I was nervous how their skills would translate from the screen into a novel, and if I would enjoy it as much as their films. Luckily even my highest expectations were surpassed.

Reading this was like being drawn into a really engrossing tv show, staying up all night to binge the entire season because at the end of every episode (chapter) it kept you on the edge of your seat and needing to find out what happens next.

The characters in here were great, I loved how their voices came through and that the protagonists weren’t perfect and didn’t always make the best decisions but I couldn’t help wanting them to still end up alright. Even the antagonists had motivations that were understandable, and they still felt human rather than just evil for the sake of it.

The plot was insane in the best way and always kept driving forward. Although at times the whole lore and concepts behind everything could’ve gotten confusing, we got enough information to still keep the story moving forward and making sense. When the reveals would finally happen, everything clicked and I also felt like I could make sense of the themes and threads that were shared between the author’s films and their novel.

The only minor thing I wish was different here is that the ending felt more fully resolved, but maybe that’s intentional. I really hope they write more novels because they definitely are skilled as an author as well as a filmmaker.

[ash · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of those books where after I finished it, I genuinely found it hard to go back to the real world after and finish my shift at work; I spent a long time after thinking about it and how much I loved it, and I'm finding it difficult to put my love for it into succinct, neat words even now. The title caught my eye and when I noticed the author's name, I was immediately excited and asked for a copy (thank you for the ARC!), then proceeded to devour it over the course of two days.
The themes of isolation, media obsession, trans/queer loneliness and desire for connection and perceived self-value, all of it blended so beautifully together with the strange, surreal concept of "Public Access Afterworld" (the place) and the wide variety of complex characters. I loved Bethany to pieces, and Jules, and so many of the characters; they all have flaws and ugly sides, but they're all so achingly human, I was so invested and wanted them all to make it to the end of the "tv show" safely and happily. If you loved "I Saw the TV Glow," this is certainly mined from the same vein and there are aspects that will feel familiar, in good and painful ways alike. I will be purchasing a copy and pestering my library/my friends to follow suit.
Thank you again for the ARC!!

[Brittany Boyd]

I got an email inviting me to read this on Netgalley and then found out it's by the person who did I See the TV Glow?? um yes sign me up

[Marcus Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was lucky enough to get my hands on a ARC copy of this from a pal at a bookstore who was generous enough not to take it for himself.

Very strong debut from Schoenbrun. Elements of her earlier work mixed in with the Matrix / Videodrome. It’s looking to be a big year for her and I’m not surprised in the least.

[Sharon Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was completely insane yet incredibly engaging and addictive

[Cassidy]

Thanks to Hogarth for offering me this ARC through NetGalley! Public Access Afterworld by Jane Schoenbrun comes out on October 27, 2026.

[alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

my brain is completely fried in the best way. this is like if there was a Creepypasta of Black Mirror and Doctor Who

[Bungaku Shoujo · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I heard that Jane Schoenbrun was writing a book– a book that was the conclusion to their thematic “screen trilogy”, no less– I was naturally elated, but I also retained a bit of skepticism. Not only because it would be bizarre to suddenly change mediums even if the series wasn’t so specifically focused on one particular medium, but because novel writing is a different skill set from screenplay writing and directing, and I Saw the TV Glow and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair were both very visual and could never work as books the same way.

Having now read the novel, I’m still not exactly sure why it is a novel at all. Looking around on the Internet, it seems that the project was originally supposed to be a TV series, which is evident in the book’s format. I can’t help but wonder if the series was either not greenlit or cancelled, so Schoenbrun had to find a more independent way to produce the story. It is just as visual, if not even more so, than I Saw the TV Glow and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Nevertheless, the screen-to-page transition wasn’t a bust; most notably, it bears no marks of the dialogue-centric writing that filmmakers-turned-novelists tend to produce. Schoenbrun’s prose is light on the brain, written conversationally without becoming a stream of consciousness. In some sections, especially the early ones, it’s written like somebody telling stories around a campfire. This all makes it easier to process the hundreds of pages of complicated plot, where not everything is neatly wrapped up or given a thorough in-book explanation. Despite its length, it’s absorbing enough that it usually doesn’t feel long.

Perhaps owing to its status as a sort of “grand finale”, the book incorporates many elements from Schoenbrun’s previous works– trans angst, Internet challenges, escapism through fiction, troubled young people, nerds who bond over television, and even a television related thing with “pink” in the title. Rather than being a retread of greatest hits, however, the book is its own thing, complete with a surprise cameo from Oppenheimer, of all people; I even felt it ultimately ended up having the opposite philosophy of I Saw the TV Glow. It’s certainly more ambitious than its predecessors, going from intimate plotlines reminiscent of analog horror creepypastas to more humorous scenes to action sequences. Before eventually intersecting, these different plotlines are told largely in chunks, without any predictable schedule; I was most captivated by the David and Erin story, and was getting a bit annoyed that I had to wait several hundred pages to see them again after their spotlight at the beginning. Despite being billed prominently in the book description, the weatherman plot was so minor that it isn’t wasn't even really its own storyline, though much ink is spilled on chapters from the perspective of Jules (the streamer obsessed with Public Access Afterworld who Bethany encounters as a content moderator), who I found to be a rather unlikeable character. The central allegory of Public Access Afterworld itself is fairly non-specific, especially in comparison to its predecessor’s very specific trans focus, with the unexpected framing device giving it extra layers. However, any reader who struggled to understand I Saw the TV Glow and were thinking of reading this book to give Schoenbrun a second chance shouldn’t bother.

Ultimately, I’d rank this after I Saw the TV Glow, but before We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, in terms of enjoyment; it lacks the purity and tenderness of heart of the former, but has more to chew on than the latter. I am very much looking forward to Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

[Annelise · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Erin Morrison and David Sawyer are filming the end of analog television, they accidentally film a glimpse of a mysterious title screen featuring the words ‘Public Access Afterworld’ and footage of a woman with spatula hands washing the dishes. Erin’s obsession with the Public Access Afterworld leads to her disappearance, and David spends years looking for her. Bethany, a trans woman working as a content moderator for a video streaming website, is routinely traumatized by the content she rejects. When someone named ‘JulesPublicAccessAfterworld’ uploads a video of their attempted suicide, saying it’s for David Sawyer, she sees it as a call for help and looks up their personal information to find them. Bethany is unwittingly pulled into the Public Access Afterworld rabbit hole, and things she once thought were coincidence are revealed to be a part of a greater plan.

Jane Schoenbrun is the writer and director of films such as ‘I Saw the TV Glow’ and ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’, and this is their first novel. It’s certainly an ambitious debut, with multiple point of view characters, locations, and time periods being explored… and that’s not even getting into the technology and horror elements. There’s gore and sudden character deaths, sure, but there’s also the existential fear of other-dimensional entities and being exploited. Also, the incredibly human cost of content moderation, and how it’s a thankless job that exposes you to the worst of what humanity has to offer, no matter how horrible it might be for your mental health. It’s also about the transgender experience, and how even well-meaning cis people can accidentally alienate people with their words. Despite tackling so many themes at once, it never feels excessive or repetitive, even at its near five hundred page length.

While ‘Public Access Afterworld’ deals with serious topics, there are plenty of moments of levity. From Marge Simpson porn parodies to the importance of Third Eye Blind’s first album, self-titled (Third Eye Blind), Schoenbrun’s love of media is all over this novel. I particularly enjoyed the fictional shows and movies that exist in the world of the novel, such as the prestige romantasy drama ‘Wolves of Birmingham’ that’s loved by Bethany’s boyfriend Abel, and the fictional Lon Chaney Jr. franchise Chimotera!, which includes an Abbott and Costello spinoff and a terrible Michael Bay remake (but Guillermo Del Toro is going to direct a high-end production soon, and it’ll really revive the franchise, promise).

Schoenbrun isn’t new to the writing scene, but as a first novel, ‘Public Access Afterworld’ is an incredible start. With its complicated characters, corporate dread and homages to cursed media, it’s a must-read for queer millennials who spend too much time watching analogue horror or reading the Lost Media Wiki (I’m telling on myself here).

[Nikki Kossaris · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve watched I Saw the TV Glow and were absolutely gutted by it, you’ll love Public Access Afterworld, Jane Schoenbrun’s debut novel. It carries that same aching unreality.

The idea of Public Access Afterworld itself is this pirate signal bleeding through screens and consciousness across decades that feels terrifying because it’s emotionally believable before it’s logically believable. It’s a retelling of a television show stuck inside the brain of a fellow patient at a juvenile rehab facility from when the author was just 17. It stuck with them and they’ve retold it themselves along the way. As if they caught the transmission and are now spreading it.

This is existential, identity-eroding horror. The kind where the boundaries between loneliness, obsession, technology, and spiritual decay start collapsing into each other. The static in this novel feels alive. Screens become thresholds. Broadcasts become hauntings. People don’t just watch things here, they get absorbed by them.

For all its surreal nightmare imagery and cosmic paranoia, Public Access Afterworld is weirdly tender. It understands shame, dysphoria, and isolation. The hunger to become real to yourself. The desire to escape not just the world but the version of yourself trapped inside it.

You can feel the filmmaker roots all over this book too. Certain scenes arrive with pure cinematic force the flickering CRT glow, empty suburban streets at night, buzzing fluorescent hallways, broadcasts that feel cursed just by existing. The imagery lingers the way traumatic dreams linger.

If you’ve ever spent time in a facility, you understand that this is the kind of book that would’ve circulated obsessively between patients. Not because everyone fully understood it, but because everyone recognized something inside it. You understand the frequency.

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Public Access Afterworld follows multiple lonely, disconnected individuals across decades, whose lives become intertwined with a mysterious pirate television signal that seems to exist somewhere beyond reality itself. After strange broadcasts begin appearing through television static, people start disappearing, become obsessed with the signal, or are consumed by the eerie realm known as Public Access Afterworld.

This book felt like stumbling onto a cursed late-night broadcast you were never meant to see and then realizing it somehow knows you personally.

Every character is searching for connection, purpose, or some version of themselves that feels real. Bethany stood out to me, her exhaustion, paranoia, dysphoria, self-doubt, and quiet hope made her feel painfully real, even while the world around her spiralled into nightmare logic.

It blends cosmic horror, conspiracy, technology, identity, and loneliness into something surreal but emotionally raw at the same time. Screens become portals, broadcasts become hauntings, and every strange transmission feels like it’s pulling the characters further away from reality and deeper into themselves.

Flickering CRT glow, liminal, fluorescent nightmare environments, and cursed broadcasts.. the setting feels surreal. It’s the kind of book that resembles tuning into a frequency that gradually takes over you.

Weird, hypnotic, and impossible to fully explain without ruining the experience.

Thank you so much Random House/Hogarth, Jane Schoenbrun, and NetGalley for the #gifted earc.
All opinions are my own 🖤

[AMY DURAN · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always a huge thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the opportunity to read and review Public Access Afterworld.

Normally I like to start my reviews with a synapse of book, but honestly, there is so much going on with this book it's just not something I can do, so I will just stick to my feedback.

Despite its flaws, Public Access Afterworld is a solid 4 out of 5 stars,, maybe even 4.5, I enjoyed the hell out of this book.

What worked:
Public Access World is not like any other book I've read, emulating movies such as , I Saw the TV Glow and even a bit of The Matrix, this story takes you on a wild ride from start to finish. I genuinely appreciated the originality of the plot, the world building and the character development. Told from multiple narrators and different timelines, the shining star was Bethany. She was relatable and charismatic, I rooted for her throughout entire story.

What didn't work:
As mentioned, there is an other going on, the book is long and if you are not paying attention you will get lost. I normally love a long book, but sections rambled and I found myself skipping ahead just to move the story along. There are characters introduced that I don't feel contributed to the story line and the ending is both ambiguous and unsatisfying. I do feel like the ending hinted at a series, and I really hope this is true, I need closure!!

I did love this book and plan to read more by Jane Schoenbrun, kudos on such an original story!

[Mon · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a specific niche of people this book is written for.

It's for those of us who grew up in the 90s, watching reruns of laugh-track sitcoms after school on those massive CRT TVs where your arm hairs would raise if you got too close to the screen, and you'd swear up and down you could tell the TV had been left on in another room because you could hear the buzzing in your brain and your mother told you to stop being ridiculous.

It's for those of us who read Goosebumps with a torch under the covers and then graduated to Fear Street and thought ourselves so grown up and actually Goosebumps is for babies now.

It's for those of us who dicked around on the family computer and dived into the internet headfirst, doing all sorts of things we shouldn't, talking to strangers, waiting patiently for gory photos to load on a dial-up connection, and reading horror stories on random forums before creepypastas were officially A Thing.

It's for those of us who knew we didn't quite fit in with the rest of the kids in our class, there was always something slightly off about you, a tune off key, and that always lived in the back of your mind until you grew up and realised oh it's because I'm fucking queer.

This book is that. And it's glorious. Five stars. No notes.

Thank you very, very much to Random House and Netgalley for the ARC.

[Clara Gauthier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jane Schoenbrun's works have a tendency to leave me speechless, and Public Access Afterworld is no exception. In the stunning conclusion to their Screen Trilogy (We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021) and I Saw the TV Glow (2024)) they have managed to distil the surreal static of their films into literary perfection.

In 2026, Bethany is a trans content reviewer, slogging through horrific videos on the night shift. Despite her attempts to keep her head down and work through the nightmares, she is drawn to Public Access Afterworld after a young streamer continues to call out to it in their troubling videos.

In 2009, David Sawyer and Erin Morrison are teenagers watching the death of analog television. When all programming ends, Erin sees mysterious broadcasts beneath the static that label themselves as Public Access Afterworld.

This is a story about love, community, analog horror, loneliness, and television. It's a story that asks what it means to give up your life for something. A story that tells us that community can pull us out of the depths of hell. It's fantastic, and I stayed up until 2AM the same day I received this ARC to finish it.

[Autumn Ketchum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you, NetGalley and Hogarth Press for the ARC! I just finished this and wow. Don’t think I can even do it justice, but it’s like it black mirror x the matrix x creepypasta x cabin in the woods x I saw the tv glow. This was really well written, it’s very poetic and smartly written at the same time. We follow a handful of characters, sometimes in different years, but all their stories eventually connect into one. A very creepy and haunting premise. As an avid pop culture fan, I really connected to some of the characters in the book. I’ll never see tv the same way again!

[August Driussi · Rating 5 out of 5]

So: you know the themes of fandom, psychosis, suicidality, transition, and self-destructive, world-ending teenage love that Schoenbrun developed so beautifully in I Saw the TV Glow? Read this book to see her turn it all up to ELEVEN. My heart stopped; my jaw dropped; my love of three-act structure crackled and thrilled. It's like if trans Buffy got way too online, went on a bender, and took on the whole TikTok-government industrial entertainment complex. I cried a few times when the horror of teenage girlhood got too real.

[ripley ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I’m telling myself the story of my life instead of living it.”

There’s nothing Jane Schoenbrun can’t do!!!! GAH what a wonderful debut.
This is very much a Schoenbrun story and like their other projects I think you’re either gonna love it or not get it. Which isn’t a bad thing! I just happen to be in the “love it” camp.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[love. · Rating 5 out of 5]

like two mirrors held up to one another creating an infinite recursion, except it's TV screens and it's a metaphor, it's several metaphors but it's actually real.

[Danny Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sort of a queer Gen Z version of Videodrome.
If you like her movies you’ll love her novel. I could hardly believe this thing was over 600 pages because I simply read it that quickly!

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

No words yet. Insane. Didn’t want it to end. Jane you genius!

[Leighanna]

TK

[david · Rating 5 out of 5]

at this point, we should allocate part of our federal taxes to directly fund jane schoenbrun so that they could write and create forever. *static* find the receiver *static*