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Ply
Not yet published
Expected 29 Sep 26The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Trust turns to the future with a novel that examines the place of technology in the American imagination
Centuries from now, at the dawn of a historical epoch filled with both uncertainty and promise, an orphan is adrift in a city on the brink of a great transformation. The state has been dismantled, and humans are reinventing social bonds and learning new ways to coexist with nature. Following a childhood defined by loss, survival, and found family, the orphan grows up to become a “pincher,” someone who steals electricity from the grid to sell it on the black market. It’s a high-risk life, one that brings her into a rich downtown art and music scene where she powers underground concerts. It also leads her to a colossal scientific invention that could be either a contraption devised by a deranged mind or a machine that will change the very fabric of reality.
After rewriting America’s past with his two previous novels, Hernan Diaz now gives us a glimpse into the future. Ply questions the place of technology in the American experiment with a plot that grabs both heart and mind. It is a novel of ideas built from a story of people. Combining Dickensian odyssey, family drama, and scientific thriller, Ply poignantly charts the tenuous boundaries of selfhood and the distance that inevitably stands between us and those we love.
Centuries from now, at the dawn of a historical epoch filled with both uncertainty and promise, an orphan is adrift in a city on the brink of a great transformation. The state has been dismantled, and humans are reinventing social bonds and learning new ways to coexist with nature. Following a childhood defined by loss, survival, and found family, the orphan grows up to become a “pincher,” someone who steals electricity from the grid to sell it on the black market. It’s a high-risk life, one that brings her into a rich downtown art and music scene where she powers underground concerts. It also leads her to a colossal scientific invention that could be either a contraption devised by a deranged mind or a machine that will change the very fabric of reality.
After rewriting America’s past with his two previous novels, Hernan Diaz now gives us a glimpse into the future. Ply questions the place of technology in the American experiment with a plot that grabs both heart and mind. It is a novel of ideas built from a story of people. Combining Dickensian odyssey, family drama, and scientific thriller, Ply poignantly charts the tenuous boundaries of selfhood and the distance that inevitably stands between us and those we love.
464 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication September 29, 2026
About the author
Hernan Diaz
17 books3,020 followersHernan Diaz is the Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author of Trust. His first novel, In the Distance, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, won the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, was translated into more than twenty languages, and was one of Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 books of the year and Literary Hub’s twenty best novels of the decade. Trust, one of The New York Times’s 100 best Books of the Century, was translated into more than thirty languages, received the Kirkus Prize, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and was named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and Time magazine, and it was one of The New Yorker’s 12 Essential Reads of the Year and one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year. Diaz’s work has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. He has received the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Want to Read
April 28, 2026Hate this cover, but very excited for the book nonetheless.
Want to Read
April 1, 2026i'm seated. the bookstore employees are scared and asking me to leave because 'it's not september 2026 yet' but i'm simply too seated
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
as far as we know, we are the only ones in this corner of the universe who have been bestowed with consciousness and language. perhaps the only ones, period. and it took evolution almost four billion years, well over a third of the age of the universe, to get us here. just imagine: you are one of the few beings to be found in light-years upon light-years who has the ability to perceive the cosmos, think about its beauty and complexity, and communicate this sense of awe to others. and what do some people do with the astounding gifts of sentience, thought, and expression? they choose to find ways of increasing profit and accumulating wealth. hard to imagine anything narrower and bleaker, anything emptier of wonder, anything more incurious and unloving.set centuries hence, hernan diaz's new novel, ply (the follow-up to his magnificent, pulitzer-winning trust), is the riveting tale of a dark future beset by energy woes and wealth disparity. amid a frenetic urban scene, diaz's nameless protagonist ("the pincher") steals electricity to grind out a living for herself. when conflicting loyalties and competing interests raise the stakes of success and even survival, the pincher's whole world is torn asunder. thrumming with dystopian eventualities, ply's outstanding storytelling and seductive world-building are deeply mesmeric. family, trust, ethics, legacy, honor, diaz's latest explores many themes, but, most of all, tells one hell of a galvanic tale.
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February 11, 2026First few pages and I am sure this will be among the best novels I ever read!
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Electricity is currency in Ply, and our central protagonist is an unnamed ‘pincher’ who charges fuel cells (known as bricks) by tapping illegal energy sources. She’s an innovative thief and develops a brick with much enhanced capacity, so her services are in high demand. Music is a major theme throughout, and the pincher sells bands the power they need to perform. In this energy starved dystopia, an electricity guzzling display equals more extravagance. Along with brew master partner, Reni,, the pincher has carved out a creative energy supplying/drink serving company called, the intentionally cheesy, Brix and Bricks. In a world where few reach the age of thirty, you get by however you can.
The book is set five hundred years in the future and described in dazzling detail with incredible steampunk imagery under a retro gloss of analog technology. Characters carry tablet-like devices called stells, accessing their personalized wiki-like file stores, and like time immemorial, gather around water stations to trade goods and share news. A defining event, known as 'The Suppression', occurred years previous, a dark day when citizen groups intended to storm the region's two major companies in control of water and energy. Corporate mutiny did not go as planned and the dissenters disappeared. Ply is the story of their children and grandchildren.
For every chapter in real time, we are given one of our unnamed narrator’s emotionally charged backstory. Her youth is filled with gadget lessons from her tinkerer mother who fixed and resold any item imaginable, and after an apprenticeship with a world class technical mind, the pincher grew from naturally gifted, to truly skilled. But developing an ingeniously improved power storing device leads our pincher to Pola, a physicist from The Great Lakes with unimaginable ambition, thrusting the plot in its intended direction.
Like Diaz’s previous novel, Trust, this prose is richly composed and surprising plotlines are cleverly embedded. When a character says their aim is to ‘unknit and reweave spacetime’, readers should expect grandiose developments. The world which serves as a backdrop to Ply is undeniably brilliant, and atmosphere overcomes brief sections that may feel like a university physics lecture. This novel's resounding finale will astound some, and provoke discussion in all. It's a pleasing experience that comes recommended.
While Ply’s themes are planted firmly in science, the environment is reminiscent of the glorious environment created by China Miéville's Perdido Street Station.
Thanks to Edelweiss+ and Riverhead Books for a review copy.
The book is set five hundred years in the future and described in dazzling detail with incredible steampunk imagery under a retro gloss of analog technology. Characters carry tablet-like devices called stells, accessing their personalized wiki-like file stores, and like time immemorial, gather around water stations to trade goods and share news. A defining event, known as 'The Suppression', occurred years previous, a dark day when citizen groups intended to storm the region's two major companies in control of water and energy. Corporate mutiny did not go as planned and the dissenters disappeared. Ply is the story of their children and grandchildren.
For every chapter in real time, we are given one of our unnamed narrator’s emotionally charged backstory. Her youth is filled with gadget lessons from her tinkerer mother who fixed and resold any item imaginable, and after an apprenticeship with a world class technical mind, the pincher grew from naturally gifted, to truly skilled. But developing an ingeniously improved power storing device leads our pincher to Pola, a physicist from The Great Lakes with unimaginable ambition, thrusting the plot in its intended direction.
Like Diaz’s previous novel, Trust, this prose is richly composed and surprising plotlines are cleverly embedded. When a character says their aim is to ‘unknit and reweave spacetime’, readers should expect grandiose developments. The world which serves as a backdrop to Ply is undeniably brilliant, and atmosphere overcomes brief sections that may feel like a university physics lecture. This novel's resounding finale will astound some, and provoke discussion in all. It's a pleasing experience that comes recommended.
While Ply’s themes are planted firmly in science, the environment is reminiscent of the glorious environment created by China Miéville's Perdido Street Station.
Thanks to Edelweiss+ and Riverhead Books for a review copy.
Review of advance copy
Hernan Diaz’s vision of the future is far more believable and philosophical than I expected.
I’m still processing my ARC of Ply. Diaz presents a future version of a familiar metropolis with subtle world-building. He never explicitly names the city, so it takes a moment to realize where you are, but once it clicks the setting becomes immersive. The narrator treats her surroundings as normal, even though life there is harsh compared to wealthier regions like the Great Lakes.
Energy almost functions as currency. The city’s power grid is controlled by a massive company called Tensor, and stealing electricity is illegal. The narrator survives as a “pincher,” siphoning power and compressing it into portable bricks. She’s also a skilled tinkerer, constantly modifying and repurposing technology to get by. Tensor and a private police force dominate the city, creating a world where corporations have essentially replaced government.
Part one establishes the narrator as a resilient figure navigating this environment on her own terms. She often finds support from people around her, yet she also has a tendency to complicate or sever those relationships. That tension makes her a compelling character whose flaws feel like an authentic product of the world she lives in.
Part two takes an unexpected turn into high-concept science and physics, briefly feeling like something out of a Blake Crouch novel, but with Diaz’s more philosophical approach to the ideas. I got a little lost in the technical descriptions, but grounding the science adds an intriguing layer to the story. Her relationships with Sola and Ines were a highlight.
One of the most impressive stylistic choices comes near the end, when Diaz shifts the narrative voice. The change is initially shocking and disorienting, but it ultimately pulls you deeper into the narrator’s mind and serves the story perfectly.
I wish we saw even more of the underground music scene, which perfectly captures the energy of 70s New York punk. Even so, the ending is wild and philosophical, and the novel feels both speculative and believable.
I received a physical ARC of Ply from a colleague who attended Winter Institute 2026.
I’m still processing my ARC of Ply. Diaz presents a future version of a familiar metropolis with subtle world-building. He never explicitly names the city, so it takes a moment to realize where you are, but once it clicks the setting becomes immersive. The narrator treats her surroundings as normal, even though life there is harsh compared to wealthier regions like the Great Lakes.
Energy almost functions as currency. The city’s power grid is controlled by a massive company called Tensor, and stealing electricity is illegal. The narrator survives as a “pincher,” siphoning power and compressing it into portable bricks. She’s also a skilled tinkerer, constantly modifying and repurposing technology to get by. Tensor and a private police force dominate the city, creating a world where corporations have essentially replaced government.
Part one establishes the narrator as a resilient figure navigating this environment on her own terms. She often finds support from people around her, yet she also has a tendency to complicate or sever those relationships. That tension makes her a compelling character whose flaws feel like an authentic product of the world she lives in.
Part two takes an unexpected turn into high-concept science and physics, briefly feeling like something out of a Blake Crouch novel, but with Diaz’s more philosophical approach to the ideas. I got a little lost in the technical descriptions, but grounding the science adds an intriguing layer to the story. Her relationships with Sola and Ines were a highlight.
One of the most impressive stylistic choices comes near the end, when Diaz shifts the narrative voice. The change is initially shocking and disorienting, but it ultimately pulls you deeper into the narrator’s mind and serves the story perfectly.
I wish we saw even more of the underground music scene, which perfectly captures the energy of 70s New York punk. Even so, the ending is wild and philosophical, and the novel feels both speculative and believable.
I received a physical ARC of Ply from a colleague who attended Winter Institute 2026.
May 21, 2026
I received this ARC third-hand without it being issued to me—pinched it, if you will—and I am happy to report that Ply was worth the subterfuge.
The unnamed protagonist of Ply is a pincher: someone who siphons power slowly from the grid into mobile battery bricks that are highly sought after throughout this post-apocalyptic world, including by musicians, who put on underground concerts. The protagonist, the daughter of a gearhead or “tinkerer,” has developed a revolutionary new power brick that has far more capacity than the devices typically used. But “pinching” is illegal, putting her at risk of disappearance by the privatized police, and various underworld figures have more than a passing interest in her new technology.
Ply takes its time with lush descriptions and a slow-moving, dual-timeline plot in Part 1 and shifts to a science- and exposition-heavy “one last job” plot in Part 2, so your enjoyment will likely depend on how much your interest in both keeps you engaged. The author experiments with tenses, points of view, timelines, and then shifts mid-book to a subatomic physics lecture. I imagine some may bounce off the novel at this inflection point due to the transition in tense and perspective, the rather jarring multi-page infodumps, and the expanded expositions about either background motivations or general science from various characters. I don’t personally think Ply benefitted from the detour, but it redeems itself completely by a wonderful set of final chapters and a fantastic ending.
A mixture of William Gibson and Emily St. John Mandel, Ply truly beautiful passages of transcendent prose, a surprising—to the point of distraction—amount of science, and a genuine punk ethos unfortunately lacking in much of today’s aesthetics-over-ideology interpretations of cyberpunk. It is a refreshingly subdued and heartfelt addition to post-apocalyptic literature and I recommend it.
The unnamed protagonist of Ply is a pincher: someone who siphons power slowly from the grid into mobile battery bricks that are highly sought after throughout this post-apocalyptic world, including by musicians, who put on underground concerts. The protagonist, the daughter of a gearhead or “tinkerer,” has developed a revolutionary new power brick that has far more capacity than the devices typically used. But “pinching” is illegal, putting her at risk of disappearance by the privatized police, and various underworld figures have more than a passing interest in her new technology.
Ply takes its time with lush descriptions and a slow-moving, dual-timeline plot in Part 1 and shifts to a science- and exposition-heavy “one last job” plot in Part 2, so your enjoyment will likely depend on how much your interest in both keeps you engaged. The author experiments with tenses, points of view, timelines, and then shifts mid-book to a subatomic physics lecture. I imagine some may bounce off the novel at this inflection point due to the transition in tense and perspective, the rather jarring multi-page infodumps, and the expanded expositions about either background motivations or general science from various characters. I don’t personally think Ply benefitted from the detour, but it redeems itself completely by a wonderful set of final chapters and a fantastic ending.
A mixture of William Gibson and Emily St. John Mandel, Ply truly beautiful passages of transcendent prose, a surprising—to the point of distraction—amount of science, and a genuine punk ethos unfortunately lacking in much of today’s aesthetics-over-ideology interpretations of cyberpunk. It is a refreshingly subdued and heartfelt addition to post-apocalyptic literature and I recommend it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This was such a departure from Hernan Diaz's previous novel, Trust, but only further cements his talent. Set in a dystopian future, the novel follows a nameless "pincher" who survives by stealing and selling electricity from the grid.
I was completely hooked by the first part of the novel. Diaz does an amazing job of slowly offering intriguing details and backstory about the narrator, her childhood, and of the secondary characters. He has created a very full world that, while set in a dystopian future, somehow felt familiar and real. I struggled getting through the second part of the novel, but this felt like more of a reflection of my intelligence and understanding of science than it did of Diaz's writing. This is not an easy read, but it is worthwhile. I will continue to pick up anything Diaz writes in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this ARC.
I was completely hooked by the first part of the novel. Diaz does an amazing job of slowly offering intriguing details and backstory about the narrator, her childhood, and of the secondary characters. He has created a very full world that, while set in a dystopian future, somehow felt familiar and real. I struggled getting through the second part of the novel, but this felt like more of a reflection of my intelligence and understanding of science than it did of Diaz's writing. This is not an easy read, but it is worthwhile. I will continue to pick up anything Diaz writes in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this ARC.
Review of advance copy
ARC Exclusive Winter Institute Edition
Hernan Diaz does it again. What did I just read??!! To call this dystopian, post-apocalyptic sci-fi would be an incomplete description. Yes, it's that and much more because of the author. This novel has a compelling plot with intimate, well-developed characters, supreme storytelling, prose that is easy to read without ever being simple, and philosophical ideas that will give me hours of fodder for contemplation. The world described is also hauntingly plausible.
Diaz is an incredibly talented writer and thinker, like no one else I’ve read. I usually don’t like novels that make for good movies, but I hope Diaz gets a movie deal for Ply and makes a shitload of money. He’s already won a well-deserved Pulitzer (for Trust). I’d like to see this talented writer be well paid also...so he can keep writing whatever his heart and mind create.
Hernan Diaz does it again. What did I just read??!! To call this dystopian, post-apocalyptic sci-fi would be an incomplete description. Yes, it's that and much more because of the author. This novel has a compelling plot with intimate, well-developed characters, supreme storytelling, prose that is easy to read without ever being simple, and philosophical ideas that will give me hours of fodder for contemplation. The world described is also hauntingly plausible.
Diaz is an incredibly talented writer and thinker, like no one else I’ve read. I usually don’t like novels that make for good movies, but I hope Diaz gets a movie deal for Ply and makes a shitload of money. He’s already won a well-deserved Pulitzer (for Trust). I’d like to see this talented writer be well paid also...so he can keep writing whatever his heart and mind create.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
I was so excited for this! Hernan Diaz is one of my favorite authors and his writing is beautiful. Ply was hypnotic, sharp, dystopian, and quietly devastating. Again, Diaz asks… what does progress really cost us?
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
A MASTERPIECE! Just give him every da*n prize in the world.
Thanks to the publisher Riverhead for granting me an ARC through Edelweiss.
Thanks to the publisher Riverhead for granting me an ARC through Edelweiss.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews