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Ply: a breathtaking story of America's future, from the winner of the Pulitzer Prize
Not yet published
Expected 24 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 art and music scene where she powers underground concerts. It also leads her to a colossal scientific invention that could change the very fabric of reality.
After rewriting America’s past with his two previous novels, Hernan Diaz defies expectations with his third and gives us a breathtaking glimpse into the future. A major achievement from a major contemporary writer, 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 art and music scene where she powers underground concerts. It also leads her to a colossal scientific invention that could change the very fabric of reality.
After rewriting America’s past with his two previous novels, Hernan Diaz defies expectations with his third and gives us a breathtaking glimpse into the future. A major achievement from a major contemporary writer, 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.
461 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication September 29, 2026
About the author
Hernan Diaz
17 books3,175 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 - 30 of 79 reviews
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
Want to Read
June 7, 2026Hate this cover. Very excited for the book nonetheless.
Click here to hear more about this book and my other anticipated releases of the upcoming quarter over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
Click here to hear more about this book and my other anticipated releases of the upcoming quarter over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
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.
Did Not Finish
July 12, 2026Reached p. 280. Although Ply has an interesting set-up and premise: the concept of 'pinching' electricity in a future some 500 years from now, a future resembling, at times, Ballard's The Drowned World, I found myself gradually losing interest as I read on. By page 280, I had lost all desire to read on. Diaz is a good writer (I thought Trust was decent) but I just wasn't bothered about the story he was trying to tell. Everything felt quite slow, exposition-heavy. I didn't care about 'the pincher' or, terribly, what happened to her. The alternating chapters in Part One, between present and flashback, just began to annoy me with their rhythm and I don't think the choice to swap to third person in Part Two was a great idea, but then again, I'm sure there is a reason for it, only I didn't get to that realisation. In a nutshell, just not my cup of tea. I would hate to turn people off this by my opinions, as I'm sure many will love it.
July 22, 2026
This was my most anticipated book of 2026 and I’m very sad to say I didn’t love it. I’m a Hernan head and I’m just unsure what he was doing here. A very beautiful last 15 pages of a 400 page long book that unfortunately felt like a build up to nothing. Really sad about this one
June 27, 2026
Ply left me in a state of such amazement, emotional and intellectual overwhelm, and bewilderment, that upon finishing I immediately returned to page one and began again. What a phenomenal, ambitious novel. A lot to process, a lot to take in. Diaz’s world-building is excellent; the future feels so thoughtfully considered: neither dystopian nor utopian, but something more nuanced and realistic, where currency and property and institutions have crumbled and nature and artistry, either technical or musical, have taken their place as stable forces in an increasingly unstable society. Upon first read, I had a difficult time reconciling the present pincher and the past pincher, the scenes in the past with her mother were a joy to read but something about the present felt off, not wrong but uncannily contrived, like he was reaching for some new iteration of what a novel was, which made the narrative that much more propulsive, and upon finishing, everything about the way I felt reading it made sense. What Diaz does narratively in the last section of the book left me absolutely breathless; the last few chapters were an extraordinary formal and philosophical exploration of the nature of self and society, and what it means to navigate a shifting social and technological reality. I don’t think every bit of plot and science has to be understood immediately for this to be a remarkably rewarding reading experience. Once again, Hernan Diaz has taken the novel in a new direction, and Ply is one that will beg to be re-read time and time again.
Thank you to NetGalley and Riverhead for a chance to read my fall's most anticipated novel.
Thank you to NetGalley and Riverhead for a chance to read my fall's most anticipated novel.
July 18, 2026
I went into Ply completely blind. I knew Hernan Díaz’s “Trust” was highly regarded, but when this advance copy became available I decided to read this first. I’m very glad I did. This is one of the most thought-provoking novels I’ve read in years.
If you’re anything like me, don’t be put off by the science fiction label. I don’t generally read hard science fiction and have struggled with books such as The Three-Body Problem, where the science often overwhelmed the humanity. Ply is the exact opposite. This is, for me, a philosophical novel dressed in the clothes of science fiction rather than a science fiction novel with philosophical ideas attached. I’d encourage anyone unsure after the opening chapters to stay with it. The novel gradually reveals itself to be something rather different from what it first appears.
The futuristic setting, the mysteries surrounding the world, the strange technologies and the quantum ideas are all fascinating, but they aren’t really the point. They exist to explore much bigger questions. What is matter? What are our bodies? What, ultimately, makes us who we are? If everything ultimately exists only at the quantum level, what does individuality even mean?
I don’t pretend to have understood every scientific concept Díaz introduces. In fact, one of the pleasures of the novel is that discovering the science becomes part of the reading experience. I’ve found myself reading Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics alongside it simply because Ply made me want to understand more about quantum mechanics, spacetime and the nature of reality. I honestly can’t remember another novel that has made quantum physics feel so exciting, so involving and so emotionally important.
Yet remarkably, none of this ever loses sight of the human story.
At its heart, this is the Pincher’s journey towards understanding herself. Throughout the novel she defines herself almost entirely through her relationships with others: as a daughter, an apprentice, a colleague, a business partner, a lover, a friend, a mentor and, eventually, almost a mother. Even late in the novel she describes herself as little more than a transitional stage between Ines and Pola, still understanding herself in relation to someone else.
Pola offers an entirely different vision of identity: that we are not separate beings connected to one another but part of one another, part of the Earth, part of the Sun, part of the universe itself. That tension between relational identity and universal identity lies at the heart of the novel.
Even on a more everyday level, Díaz keeps returning to the idea that our truest selves emerge when we lose ourselves completely in what we’re doing. The Pincher is at her happiest when absorbed in a task, disappearing into work, music or purpose. It reminded me of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s idea of “flow”, where identity almost dissolves into complete immersion. Again and again the novel asks whether the self is something fixed or something continually created through our relationships, our work and our attention.
One moment near the end brilliantly captures this collapse of ordinary ideas about identity. The narration quietly shifts from third person into first person without warning, as the Pincher’s perception of herself and the world begins to dissolve. It’s one of several moments where the very form of the novel reflects the philosophical questions it’s asking.
The line that has stayed with me more than any other comes towards the end:
“Endless anews that didn’t follow one another.”
Taken on its own, the line is wonderfully enigmatic. Within the novel, it became one of the moments that stayed with me longest.
For all its philosophical ambition, this is never a dry intellectual exercise. It’s genuinely funny in places, full of warmth, full of memorable relationships, and surprisingly moving. Music runs through the novel as an expression of individuality that survives almost everything. People still seek companionship, hold parties, fall in love, form friendships and create art. In the face of extraordinary circumstances, humanity stubbornly remains human. That, more than anything, gives the novel its hope.
At times the city itself reminded me of Calvino’s Invisible Cities, where the place becomes as much an expression of consciousness as a physical location. I’d happily recommend reading the two alongside one another.
Can you simply read Ply as a thriller? Yes, absolutely. The mystery is compelling, the pacing excellent and the ending dramatic and deeply satisfying. But if you’re prepared to engage with the novel’s questions about consciousness, matter, identity and what it actually means to exist, you’ll discover something far richer.
Rarely has a novel left me feeling that my relationship with the universe itself has subtly changed. I certainly didn’t leave with all the answers, but I did leave thinking differently about time, reality and what it means to be a person. Very few novels can honestly claim to have done that.
This won’t be my last Hernan Díaz novel. Trust has just moved very near the top of my reading pile.
My thanks to NetGalley, Pan Macmillan and Picador for providing an advance review copy. As always, these are my own honest thoughts.
If you’re anything like me, don’t be put off by the science fiction label. I don’t generally read hard science fiction and have struggled with books such as The Three-Body Problem, where the science often overwhelmed the humanity. Ply is the exact opposite. This is, for me, a philosophical novel dressed in the clothes of science fiction rather than a science fiction novel with philosophical ideas attached. I’d encourage anyone unsure after the opening chapters to stay with it. The novel gradually reveals itself to be something rather different from what it first appears.
The futuristic setting, the mysteries surrounding the world, the strange technologies and the quantum ideas are all fascinating, but they aren’t really the point. They exist to explore much bigger questions. What is matter? What are our bodies? What, ultimately, makes us who we are? If everything ultimately exists only at the quantum level, what does individuality even mean?
I don’t pretend to have understood every scientific concept Díaz introduces. In fact, one of the pleasures of the novel is that discovering the science becomes part of the reading experience. I’ve found myself reading Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics alongside it simply because Ply made me want to understand more about quantum mechanics, spacetime and the nature of reality. I honestly can’t remember another novel that has made quantum physics feel so exciting, so involving and so emotionally important.
Yet remarkably, none of this ever loses sight of the human story.
At its heart, this is the Pincher’s journey towards understanding herself. Throughout the novel she defines herself almost entirely through her relationships with others: as a daughter, an apprentice, a colleague, a business partner, a lover, a friend, a mentor and, eventually, almost a mother. Even late in the novel she describes herself as little more than a transitional stage between Ines and Pola, still understanding herself in relation to someone else.
Pola offers an entirely different vision of identity: that we are not separate beings connected to one another but part of one another, part of the Earth, part of the Sun, part of the universe itself. That tension between relational identity and universal identity lies at the heart of the novel.
Even on a more everyday level, Díaz keeps returning to the idea that our truest selves emerge when we lose ourselves completely in what we’re doing. The Pincher is at her happiest when absorbed in a task, disappearing into work, music or purpose. It reminded me of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s idea of “flow”, where identity almost dissolves into complete immersion. Again and again the novel asks whether the self is something fixed or something continually created through our relationships, our work and our attention.
One moment near the end brilliantly captures this collapse of ordinary ideas about identity. The narration quietly shifts from third person into first person without warning, as the Pincher’s perception of herself and the world begins to dissolve. It’s one of several moments where the very form of the novel reflects the philosophical questions it’s asking.
The line that has stayed with me more than any other comes towards the end:
“Endless anews that didn’t follow one another.”
Taken on its own, the line is wonderfully enigmatic. Within the novel, it became one of the moments that stayed with me longest.
For all its philosophical ambition, this is never a dry intellectual exercise. It’s genuinely funny in places, full of warmth, full of memorable relationships, and surprisingly moving. Music runs through the novel as an expression of individuality that survives almost everything. People still seek companionship, hold parties, fall in love, form friendships and create art. In the face of extraordinary circumstances, humanity stubbornly remains human. That, more than anything, gives the novel its hope.
At times the city itself reminded me of Calvino’s Invisible Cities, where the place becomes as much an expression of consciousness as a physical location. I’d happily recommend reading the two alongside one another.
Can you simply read Ply as a thriller? Yes, absolutely. The mystery is compelling, the pacing excellent and the ending dramatic and deeply satisfying. But if you’re prepared to engage with the novel’s questions about consciousness, matter, identity and what it actually means to exist, you’ll discover something far richer.
Rarely has a novel left me feeling that my relationship with the universe itself has subtly changed. I certainly didn’t leave with all the answers, but I did leave thinking differently about time, reality and what it means to be a person. Very few novels can honestly claim to have done that.
This won’t be my last Hernan Díaz novel. Trust has just moved very near the top of my reading pile.
My thanks to NetGalley, Pan Macmillan and Picador for providing an advance review copy. As always, these are my own honest thoughts.
August 20, 2026
“I don't know what "cool" means but I do know that it can never have any content. It's pure removal. Once attached to something particular, it immediately dies under the weight of specificity.”
.
I made a mistake, I should have reviewed this as soon as I finished, since it is largely forgettable. Truth be told, I think I finished it at some point over the Tasman Sea, and now I’m writing this in the Bay of Islands on a lovely, mild winter’s day. Outstretched in front of me, the water lies lazily, with the islands looking almost placed there by a hand unseen. When I say I finished it, I really mean I glanced (glazed) over the long, interminable monologues on physics and other topics. Characters expounding on physics or any other topic isn’t a bad thing, but here it just slowed the book down terribly, and it felt like Diaz was ventriloquizing the characters, which is fine, but it just feels like the author’s voice and his extensive research.
.
It also doesn’t help that I find these dystopian books to be so uninteresting, an idea overdone, an idea that seems to be tweaked in minor ways, culminating in a rather beige tone; for instance, a deadly virus à la Station Eleven, here the rather believable theory of corporates overtaking the state and the slow disintegration of society. It’s a concept that just feels stilted and stale. Plus, while I don’t mind suspending logic in books, there are some aspects of this that felt borderline mocking my intelligence. I enjoyed his writing and world-building in the first half, but then it drastically changed in the second, moving from the first person into a detached third person. A really artful way of suddenly pulling you out of the story. For the first portion, I just about liked some of the slow descriptive language, but it really is an overly bloated book that I didn’t really enjoy.
.
I made a mistake, I should have reviewed this as soon as I finished, since it is largely forgettable. Truth be told, I think I finished it at some point over the Tasman Sea, and now I’m writing this in the Bay of Islands on a lovely, mild winter’s day. Outstretched in front of me, the water lies lazily, with the islands looking almost placed there by a hand unseen. When I say I finished it, I really mean I glanced (glazed) over the long, interminable monologues on physics and other topics. Characters expounding on physics or any other topic isn’t a bad thing, but here it just slowed the book down terribly, and it felt like Diaz was ventriloquizing the characters, which is fine, but it just feels like the author’s voice and his extensive research.
.
It also doesn’t help that I find these dystopian books to be so uninteresting, an idea overdone, an idea that seems to be tweaked in minor ways, culminating in a rather beige tone; for instance, a deadly virus à la Station Eleven, here the rather believable theory of corporates overtaking the state and the slow disintegration of society. It’s a concept that just feels stilted and stale. Plus, while I don’t mind suspending logic in books, there are some aspects of this that felt borderline mocking my intelligence. I enjoyed his writing and world-building in the first half, but then it drastically changed in the second, moving from the first person into a detached third person. A really artful way of suddenly pulling you out of the story. For the first portion, I just about liked some of the slow descriptive language, but it really is an overly bloated book that I didn’t really enjoy.
July 15, 2026
i liked the political & social commentary, but the overall dystopian concept didn’t work for me personally (me problem, i always struggle with those more)
writing style was good, i would probably give some of this author’s other books a try!
writing style was good, i would probably give some of this author’s other books a try!
July 21, 2026
Some books tell you a story.
Others quietly change the way you see the world.
Ply is one of those rare novels.
I started this book trying to figure out who everyone was and where the story was going. By the end, I wasn’t thinking about the plot anymore. I was thinking about identity, consciousness, friendship, sacrifice… and one small word that completely changed the way I understood the ending.
This isn’t a book to rush. It asks you to slow down, reread passages, and become comfortable with uncertainty. Every conversation feels intentional, every relationship matters, and every page draws you a little deeper into questions that don’t have easy answers.
At its heart, Ply is a novel about transformation—how people change, how love and loyalty evolve, and how even our understanding of “home” can shift.
I finished this book with more questions than answers… and for the first time in a long while, I didn’t mind that at all.
If you enjoy literary fiction that trusts its readers and invites you to think long after you’ve closed the cover, I highly recommend Ply.
Thank you to the Riverhead Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advance copy.
Others quietly change the way you see the world.
Ply is one of those rare novels.
I started this book trying to figure out who everyone was and where the story was going. By the end, I wasn’t thinking about the plot anymore. I was thinking about identity, consciousness, friendship, sacrifice… and one small word that completely changed the way I understood the ending.
This isn’t a book to rush. It asks you to slow down, reread passages, and become comfortable with uncertainty. Every conversation feels intentional, every relationship matters, and every page draws you a little deeper into questions that don’t have easy answers.
At its heart, Ply is a novel about transformation—how people change, how love and loyalty evolve, and how even our understanding of “home” can shift.
I finished this book with more questions than answers… and for the first time in a long while, I didn’t mind that at all.
If you enjoy literary fiction that trusts its readers and invites you to think long after you’ve closed the cover, I highly recommend Ply.
Thank you to the Riverhead Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advance copy.
June 7, 2026
Hard to say what I feel after getting the opportunity to read this book early. Part 1 was more enjoyable on a line-by-line basis. Part 2 was super enmeshed in scientific jargon, which made things a little confusing.
I believe this book is overall about the idea of selfhood, how the line blend when it comes to family, in this case chosen. Gorgeously written, highly atmospheric to the last line. A book that’ll leaving you pondering…
I believe this book is overall about the idea of selfhood, how the line blend when it comes to family, in this case chosen. Gorgeously written, highly atmospheric to the last line. A book that’ll leaving you pondering…
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Without the aid of a single screw or wire, Wakefield managed to build a machine that resembles Pola’s. The pincher remembers the scientist’s words about timelines bifurcating or conjoining by design. Accessing potential worlds. This is what Wakefield’s experiment has achieved: He exists simultaneously in one reality for his wife (on a business trip, possibly getting ill or hurt, dying, remaining in her mind as a memory) and in another one of his own, in his apartment, one block away (aging, in dis‑ guise, guilt ridden, lurking). In one timeline, his existence has ended; in the other, it continues. He has unfolded. “Wakefield is another man.” Yet the same. Wakefield, the pincher thinks for a moment, beat Pola by several centuries.
Argentinian-American author Hernan Diaz’s first novel “In The Distance” (2017) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (and received a range of other prize nominations) and his second novel “Trust” (2022) went one better – winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2023 after its longlisting for the Booker Prize in 2022.
I had mixed views on the latter (which I read a couple of months before its Booker longlisting and which I eventually rated #12/13 on the longlist) and which I summarised as a tale which bridges two cultures (art/literature and high finance), but which is very much a book of two halves (the first almost deliberately weak, the second intriguing) and which left me in two minds (4*+ concept and a 2* execution).
I admired the way in which it explicitly aimed to provide a literary exploration of capital, investment and banking; I also liked the author’s idea of deconstructing one of the foundational myths/narratives of American society (the role of free market capitalism and the investment markets and particularly the self-made wealthy entrepreneur) in the same way that his first novel “In The Distance” did with the Western. However, the opening two sections – both pastiches – were almost deliberately weak and I think the novel would have been better served alternating the four sections.
This is his third novel – and sure to be a contender for literary prizes given his reputation – and he has taken his genre borrowing from Western to early 20thcentury fiction (and business hagiography) to now dystopian science fiction – and started from the premise that the American society has deconstructed itself.
Set some 500 years in the future (as we know as it takes place around 1000 years post Renaissance), what is referred to as the modern era (our era) has come to an end with the dissolution of democratic states, social mobility – due to an elite caste, legal systems and the primacy of the “human” in a world of devices (note though that neither AI or really climate change are particularly pertinent to the world being described or to the end of ours) leading to .
In the American failed City-state in which the novel is set a few decades earlier, a period of incipient revolutionary uprising which aimed to bring back into some form of public ownership water and energy and revive education and public health (*) a violent counter-revolutionary Suppression ensued and now the even more failed City state (life expectancy is low due to a lack of basic antibiotics, birth rate has plummeted for unclear reasons) and the streets are largely chaotic and uncontrolled although with a for-hire private firm CTS having a monopoly on security and another Tensor a monopoly on electricity distribution.
(*) it has to be said that it was rather apposite reading the book on the day of Andy Burnham’s own speech setting out how manifesto for his own coup – for example “a shared plan began to take shape; They would take an alliance to take the water supply system (Flow) and the central power station (Tensor). While distributing these resources fairly among citizens, the recapture would also wipe out the last two remaining strongholds where the remains of political and financial power were intertwined and consolidated”
Both CTS and Tensor are therefore the biggest dangers to our unnamed (in Part One first section) first party narrator, daughter of an underground bookseller father (who disappeared in the suppression) and ex-commune living junk-workshop tinkerer and trader Mother (who died of cancer when the narrator was still pre-teenage). After a period – her back story is mixed throughout the current action - living with one of her Mother’s customers (which ended up with her finger being broken when his family come to claim him from his drug addiction) and then apprenticed to one of her suppliers – she works as a pincher : effectively stealing money from illegal intercepts on Tensor power lines (something she got into with her now dead-of-infection female partner) and charging up bricks which act as a form of currency and can be traded to those who need power – in particular (and a passion of the narrator) music concerts.
Now however she has invented a new brick with a huge storage capacity and which is also charged over time (which while therefore needing concealing does avoid the rapid and telltale Tensor alerting quick charges of a conventional brick) – a brick which interests her power broker – an ex-Balkan Anton but even more so the mysterious attentions of an unknown stalker who as a gesture of goodwill offers two hugely valuable brick components, and then (either she suspects when most paranoid due to Anton’s attempts to sell her invention, or simply due to his enquiries as to who the mystery person might be) two warring crime bosses both of whom want to but the new brick (and see it as less a request than an order).
Many elements of this Part One are promising although I could not help feel that while my brother’s succinct summary of the early pastiche parts of “Trust” (“barely a word is not wasted) may be a little harsh here, that the worldbuilding, the back story, the current day action around the new brick and particularly the narrator’s interactions with a number of her favourite musicians (and the rather baffling explanations of their music) and with a musical influencer
Part Two of the novel – which occurs just after the pincher (and note that this section switches to the second person – which becomes more key later in the novel) meets the mysterious follower – who turns out to be an elderly lady (especially by the standards of the City) Pola who wants the pincher to steal the entire power of the City’s grid. Pola it turns out is a brilliant if maverick scientist originally from the Great Lakes (which ceded from the States years ago and still have a functioning society) but now living in a ramshackle but amazingly equipped scientific laboratory/factory in the City – having rejected the overtures of her business focused ex-partner in the Lakes.
In turn for giving the pincher access both to her own genius (Pola is far from modest) and supplies from the Great Lakes, she wants the pincher to use street smarts and improvisation to steal all the City’s power to help Pola power up a scientific experiment she is close to perfecting – which in effect produces a much smaller but also more powerful particle collider: think the Large Hadron collider but both shrunk to the size of a small room, and so powerful that it can get in effect to the strings of string theory, to the very scale at which time no longer has meaning and which is almost the other side of space.
If that last explanation sounds like a mash up of Carlo Rovelli and some rather hand waving pseuo-science then that would be a fairly accurate description of this part of the novel – which all too often involves Pola’s lengthy expositions of what does seem to be real science but which sits oddly in the novel.
And things take an even odder turn as she seems convinced her experiments will almost immediately change the course of history (in fact – by revealing the level at which entropy no longer exists thus meaning that time’s associated arrow no longer exists – remove the concept of history).
There are some really nice though. My favourite perhaps relates to when the pincher tries to research a little of Pola’s work and the nature of the machine she calls “Mr Wakefield” (actually a real life term relating to plasma wakefield accelerators which just as Pola describes create waves which injected particles effectively surf) and comes across Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 19th century short story Wakefield and draws clever parallels to Pola’s quest.
Woven through the strings (pun intended) of the science are both: some action scenes as the pincher and Aaron come up with a plot to simultaneously scam the crime bosses while getting them to take actions against CTS and Tensor that will act as cover for the city-grid-level super-pinch; a tentative but guarded and often spiky friendship which develops between Pola and the pincher (Pola for example unable to avoid condescension but also critical of what she sees as the selfishness, stuff-accumulating world view of the pincher) - and then a three way three generation relationship between both and a young orphan girl (and seeming abuse survivor)
And when the trio finally are able to start their experiment it results in an incident which suddenly makes sense of the change in person in the first two sections as the narrative then switches to a blurred voice and almost merged/multi-identity due, which then plays out against the repercussions of both Anton/the pincher’s scam on the two crime bosses and Pola’s break with her partner – and what overall is perhaps too mystical an ending for me, if one clearly in keeping with many of the novel’s ideas.
Overall this really was without doubt an intelligent and distinctive novel – but one that was not really successful for me.
My thanks to Picador for an ARC via NetGalley
Slowly, like something hesitatingly emerging from nothing, the disk comes into view. The pincher gets closer. Hard to put into words what I see when I’m only a few steps away. An impossible space taking place. A convex concavity seen from every possible point of view. And it sees me from every possible point of view. And I see it seeing me from every possible point of view. And it and I simultaneously create and negate one another anew in each one of these infinite acts of reciprocal recognition. And all there is is all these endless anews that somehow don’t follow one another.
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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 NetGalley
Hernan Diaz’ Ply is set in far future North America. Oral history tells us that the Great Lakes states declared their independence from the United States and their secession was unopposed. The United States itself is a distant, barely recalled memory. ”Your grandmother could trace our lineage all the back to the times of the United States. Our great-great-great-great grandmother was a lawyer. Can you imagine? I honestly don’t know how many ‘great-greats’ we need before ‘grandmother,’ but there it is. A lawyer. . . What were lawyers? How could people possibly have profited from the law? Who got to be a judge.” Widespread literacy no longer exists, replaced by looking at drawn icons. Medicine as we know it has disappeared, as have functioning governments and civil societies. The infrastructure that we take for granted—potable water, sewer systems, electricity, and heating oil and gas—has fallen away. Cities fall into complete disrepair and collapse, and waterways are clogged with the detritus of hundreds of years of neglect. Twenty-first century electronic and manual appliances have become ancient relics, restored or maintained only by revered skilled tinkers.
Ply takes place in what we can surmise was once a major American city on the east coast. The core small cast includes three women spanning decades in age, all smart, skilled, and independent. The youngest is prepubescent Ines—homeless, undernourished, and street smart. The oldest is Pola, with her rare graduate school education in the Great Lakes area—fearless, devoted to science, and wealthy. Between Ines’ and Pola’s ages is Ply’s main character, "the pincher.” The pincher is the daughter of a beloved especially clever tinker. After her mother died, the pincher, still a child, eventually apprenticed with a renowned tinker, even wearing the tinker smock and shaved head, transforming herself into a near novitiate nun-like figure of adoration. After following her lover out of three years of apprenticeship, the pincher teaches herself to “pinch” electricity from Tensor’s private electrical lines and charge “bricks” (batteries). The pincher, as clever as her mother, invents a new and more powerful type of brick: ”Not too long ago, I designed a new kind of unit. It holds the equivalent of about forty normal bricks. Instead of a lot of small, quick pinches that would require going all over town with cumbersome equipment, my brick needs just one slow pinch. It’s merely double the size of the average unit, which means I can take it to a venue in a backpack or use it to recharge dozens of normal batteries in the safety of my workshop. Because it’s so powerful, it charges at a low rate to make it as stealthy as possible. The draw is much longer than when using a standard brick. Slower by a few factors, yes, but completely undetectable.” Using her new super-brick, the pincher earns her living by powering concerts by her favorite bands, the Children and Polit Bureau.
The pincher, Pola, and Ines form an intergenerational triad of powerful women living together and supporting each other. Pola seeks to advance science and the pincher invents her new and more powerful brick. Both Pola and the pincher draw the attention of the rich and criminal. Any more said will ruin your own reading of Ply.
Diaz presents a multilayered dystopia, including different strands of its evolving political and social philosophy. The pincher’s mother, for example, believed that ”the gradual dissolution of the city and all bonds that had once sustained it was a lovely sight. Slowly and often despite ourselves, we were learning how to be somebody else. The fall of the technological order was the next step in this new direction. Humans. . . had an insatiable desire for comfort. She believed the aim of all work had always been an end to work. Minimizing effort. . . Undisturbed rest was the ultimate goal. To be as close to death in life as possible.”
Diaz has written three exceptional novels: In the Distance (2017), Trust (2013), and now Ply (2026). Diaz’ novels are distinct from each other in time, place, and concerns. But three threads unite Diaz’ novels. First, Ply, Trust, and In the Distance are all formidable works of pure imagining. Second, the three novels all deal with visions of the past and future of the United States. Third, detail and precision mark Diaz’ three novels: precision in his characters and their personalities and traits, detail in his historical and future vision, and exactitude in his descriptions of topography, buildings, and physical states.
Hernan Diaz’ Ply is a masterful far future dystopian novel, in which Hernan Diaz intimately interweaves dystopia with the plot and the characters. I can’t imagine the characters or plot apart from the dystopia. Ply’s dystopia not just layered onto the plot and characters, but is inherent to them. Ply is among best novels I’ve read in 2026 and among best dystopian novels I’ve ever read. The 2026 Booker Prize longlist contains no fewer than five novels worthy of winning. If Ply had been longlisted, it would be a formidable candidate for winning the Booker Prize as well.
Five stars
I would like to thank NetGalley and Riverhead Books for allowing me access to this excellent novel.
Ply takes place in what we can surmise was once a major American city on the east coast. The core small cast includes three women spanning decades in age, all smart, skilled, and independent. The youngest is prepubescent Ines—homeless, undernourished, and street smart. The oldest is Pola, with her rare graduate school education in the Great Lakes area—fearless, devoted to science, and wealthy. Between Ines’ and Pola’s ages is Ply’s main character, "the pincher.” The pincher is the daughter of a beloved especially clever tinker. After her mother died, the pincher, still a child, eventually apprenticed with a renowned tinker, even wearing the tinker smock and shaved head, transforming herself into a near novitiate nun-like figure of adoration. After following her lover out of three years of apprenticeship, the pincher teaches herself to “pinch” electricity from Tensor’s private electrical lines and charge “bricks” (batteries). The pincher, as clever as her mother, invents a new and more powerful type of brick: ”Not too long ago, I designed a new kind of unit. It holds the equivalent of about forty normal bricks. Instead of a lot of small, quick pinches that would require going all over town with cumbersome equipment, my brick needs just one slow pinch. It’s merely double the size of the average unit, which means I can take it to a venue in a backpack or use it to recharge dozens of normal batteries in the safety of my workshop. Because it’s so powerful, it charges at a low rate to make it as stealthy as possible. The draw is much longer than when using a standard brick. Slower by a few factors, yes, but completely undetectable.” Using her new super-brick, the pincher earns her living by powering concerts by her favorite bands, the Children and Polit Bureau.
The pincher, Pola, and Ines form an intergenerational triad of powerful women living together and supporting each other. Pola seeks to advance science and the pincher invents her new and more powerful brick. Both Pola and the pincher draw the attention of the rich and criminal. Any more said will ruin your own reading of Ply.
Diaz presents a multilayered dystopia, including different strands of its evolving political and social philosophy. The pincher’s mother, for example, believed that ”the gradual dissolution of the city and all bonds that had once sustained it was a lovely sight. Slowly and often despite ourselves, we were learning how to be somebody else. The fall of the technological order was the next step in this new direction. Humans. . . had an insatiable desire for comfort. She believed the aim of all work had always been an end to work. Minimizing effort. . . Undisturbed rest was the ultimate goal. To be as close to death in life as possible.”
Diaz has written three exceptional novels: In the Distance (2017), Trust (2013), and now Ply (2026). Diaz’ novels are distinct from each other in time, place, and concerns. But three threads unite Diaz’ novels. First, Ply, Trust, and In the Distance are all formidable works of pure imagining. Second, the three novels all deal with visions of the past and future of the United States. Third, detail and precision mark Diaz’ three novels: precision in his characters and their personalities and traits, detail in his historical and future vision, and exactitude in his descriptions of topography, buildings, and physical states.
Hernan Diaz’ Ply is a masterful far future dystopian novel, in which Hernan Diaz intimately interweaves dystopia with the plot and the characters. I can’t imagine the characters or plot apart from the dystopia. Ply’s dystopia not just layered onto the plot and characters, but is inherent to them. Ply is among best novels I’ve read in 2026 and among best dystopian novels I’ve ever read. The 2026 Booker Prize longlist contains no fewer than five novels worthy of winning. If Ply had been longlisted, it would be a formidable candidate for winning the Booker Prize as well.
Five stars
I would like to thank NetGalley and Riverhead Books for allowing me access to this excellent novel.
August 18, 2026
A big thank you to Riverhead Books and Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for a review!
I was conflicted on whether to give this book 3 stars or 4 stars, so let's ballpark it at a 3.5. This was a little bit of a bummer, not going to lie, as I loved Diaz's previous book, Trust. It started out super promising - the setting is a post-apocalyptic United States several years in the future, where private enterprise has ruined basic living and people fight to survive in their terrible circumstances. Diaz has such a unique and interesting take on a collapsed United States, writing an apocalypse that is bleak and worse yet, entirely plausible. It's how I found out that Diaz is Argentinian - so much of what he was describing sounded so similar to what has already happened in various South American countries. It isn't that far off to imagine a future United States where basic necessities are locked behind a privately-managed company.
The main character is a young woman who runs a hustle of siphoning electric power from a private company's power grid and selling it to whomever in exchange for goods or services. I liked our main character - she never gets a name, as far as I know, but the book does a good job at humanizing her. Part One alternates between telling her story in the past and in the future, and what exactly led to her becoming a 'pincher'-this book's definition of someone who steals electricity from the power grid. When things begin to heat up for her, she tries to seek refuge in a new part of the city, leading her to a new chapter in her life.
Part Two is where my negative feelings on the book began to solidify. There is a sudden point-of-view switch (from first to third person, thought it continues to center on the pincher) and while the POV switching makes sense at the end, it doesn't change the fact that it's a little awkward after being in the pincher's head for several chapters. There's another POV switch within one chapter of Part Two that made me think it was a typo - no, it's intentional, but that's how sudden and abrupt it is. A character goes on scientific soliloquys about quantum physics for pages upon pages to where it starts to feel like technobabble. Without giving too much away (as this book doesn't come out till the end of next month) there is a time travel element to the story, but I couldn't get invested in it because so much of it is told through lengthy, meandering monologues. I think there is a way to do time travel in a way that makes it entertaining but also technical; The Everlasting and Flux come to mind with the latter even going for a more abstract approach.
I think it was also in Part Two where some of the writing became an issue for me. I adored it when it was doing early worldbuilding, but after a while it started to feel overwritten, to the point where I wondered if Diaz was trying to hit a word/page count. It's still really good writing, regardless, but it gets to a point where the description of a bunker or a sunset begin to bog down the pacing. And then sometimes it becomes very beige prose, where it. is written. like. this...
Some of it I get, as its ending makes some of the repetition make sense, but some of it is done only for dramatic effect, and I don't know how to feel about it.
Besides my gripes with the pacing and the writing, I did enjoy Part Two. It strengthens the pincher's character by introducing new characters that give her someone to play off of, in a good and bad way, and gives her something to work towards. We see how her past affects the way she interacts with characters of the present, and it becomes sweet, albeit a little saccharine, to see her find genuine human connection. The last few chapters of the book had an emptying sense of loss I hadn't felt in a book in a long time, and the final chapter ends in a poetic way that ties its metanarrative together. It makes you understand and appreciate what Hernan Diaz was going for, even if it went against itself at times.
Overall, I do think this is a good read if you are looking for something experimental but also approachable. It has a lot of the metatexual elements of Trust that give you similar lightbulb moments when more is revealed in the book. However, I think if you are new to Diaz's stuff and want a sample of his writing at its peak, I would try Trust first, as it is much more compact and tightly written than this book. If you read and liked Trust, give Ply a try, but I don't think it reaches the same heights in terms of writing and pacing.
I was conflicted on whether to give this book 3 stars or 4 stars, so let's ballpark it at a 3.5. This was a little bit of a bummer, not going to lie, as I loved Diaz's previous book, Trust. It started out super promising - the setting is a post-apocalyptic United States several years in the future, where private enterprise has ruined basic living and people fight to survive in their terrible circumstances. Diaz has such a unique and interesting take on a collapsed United States, writing an apocalypse that is bleak and worse yet, entirely plausible. It's how I found out that Diaz is Argentinian - so much of what he was describing sounded so similar to what has already happened in various South American countries. It isn't that far off to imagine a future United States where basic necessities are locked behind a privately-managed company.
The main character is a young woman who runs a hustle of siphoning electric power from a private company's power grid and selling it to whomever in exchange for goods or services. I liked our main character - she never gets a name, as far as I know, but the book does a good job at humanizing her. Part One alternates between telling her story in the past and in the future, and what exactly led to her becoming a 'pincher'-this book's definition of someone who steals electricity from the power grid. When things begin to heat up for her, she tries to seek refuge in a new part of the city, leading her to a new chapter in her life.
Part Two is where my negative feelings on the book began to solidify. There is a sudden point-of-view switch (from first to third person, thought it continues to center on the pincher) and while the POV switching makes sense at the end, it doesn't change the fact that it's a little awkward after being in the pincher's head for several chapters. There's another POV switch within one chapter of Part Two that made me think it was a typo - no, it's intentional, but that's how sudden and abrupt it is. A character goes on scientific soliloquys about quantum physics for pages upon pages to where it starts to feel like technobabble. Without giving too much away (as this book doesn't come out till the end of next month) there is a time travel element to the story, but I couldn't get invested in it because so much of it is told through lengthy, meandering monologues. I think there is a way to do time travel in a way that makes it entertaining but also technical; The Everlasting and Flux come to mind with the latter even going for a more abstract approach.
I think it was also in Part Two where some of the writing became an issue for me. I adored it when it was doing early worldbuilding, but after a while it started to feel overwritten, to the point where I wondered if Diaz was trying to hit a word/page count. It's still really good writing, regardless, but it gets to a point where the description of a bunker or a sunset begin to bog down the pacing. And then sometimes it becomes very beige prose, where it. is written. like. this...
Some of it I get, as its ending makes some of the repetition make sense, but some of it is done only for dramatic effect, and I don't know how to feel about it.
Besides my gripes with the pacing and the writing, I did enjoy Part Two. It strengthens the pincher's character by introducing new characters that give her someone to play off of, in a good and bad way, and gives her something to work towards. We see how her past affects the way she interacts with characters of the present, and it becomes sweet, albeit a little saccharine, to see her find genuine human connection. The last few chapters of the book had an emptying sense of loss I hadn't felt in a book in a long time, and the final chapter ends in a poetic way that ties its metanarrative together. It makes you understand and appreciate what Hernan Diaz was going for, even if it went against itself at times.
Overall, I do think this is a good read if you are looking for something experimental but also approachable. It has a lot of the metatexual elements of Trust that give you similar lightbulb moments when more is revealed in the book. However, I think if you are new to Diaz's stuff and want a sample of his writing at its peak, I would try Trust first, as it is much more compact and tightly written than this book. If you read and liked Trust, give Ply a try, but I don't think it reaches the same heights in terms of writing and pacing.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
[5++]
ALL THE FEELS
AL THE THINKS
I am stricken; I am conquered. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Reading Hernan Diaz’ Ply was both emotionally riveting and intellectually challenging, my favorite kind of book. Four hundred or more years into the future, we are both advanced and primitive. Money is absent—we barter or use gold. Health care and usual medicine has morphed into a kind of necessary spiritual healing of the Great Lakes due to minimal medication access. Social networks are crude since the Suppression (just how it sounds plus no federal government) and other events have knocked out civilization as we know it now. But there are still some educated scientists who are progressive, and one older woman who is determined to “work with the loom of the universe” to “weave and unweave spacetime itself.” If that doesn’t sound reasonable, read the novel. Immerse yourself. Note that paradoxes rule.
The power of language is consummate.
The voltage of words had me thinking of the Talmud. Being Jewish, I was introduced early to how individual words can shape reality—words aren’t static, they have the power to create and destroy. Words are an objective reality from which existence springs. That happened to me while I read PLY. Point of view is plied as a glimmering tool to augment Time and Space.
The main characters are the unnamed pincher—she steals and preserves and buttresses electricity, often to power punk rock concerts that appeal to her. Then there is Pola, the scientist, an older woman, who teams up with the pincher. There are also gangster type madmen that the pincher needs to accomplish tasks. She is an orphan—her mother was a self-taught tinkerer (like an engineer in our time) and her father was a bookseller who disappeared during the Suppression. A third character come is late—I won’t spoil--as this character emerges in the last eighth of the book.
I do not have the alacrity of language to articulate (the fission and fusion of) this book. If an event horizon could be a novel, then Hernan Diaz is in the vicinity. His acrobatic linguistics fuels the story, commanded me through the parts I didn’t understand. He reminded me at times of David Mitchell, combining the familiar propulsion of plot with the erudite and inscrutable enigma of physics and other sciences. Speculative and stunning, alarming and hopeful. The best part? I didn’t see AI. Climate change was understated. (Pardon me calling physics inscrutable. I want a round table discussion of leading particle, theoretical, and quantum physicists-- but with Hernan Diaz leading the discussion).
There’s too much of the infrastructure (or lack of it) that I haven’t mentioned. I’m trying to keep my review condensed. I want to quote from this book—especially the phenomenal paradoxes like how freezing the laws of science serve to perpetuate it; phrases like blind and all-seeing; genuinely fake, and other opposites that define the indefinable. But I’m reading from an advanced copy—this advanced copy is actually an early copy—dicey to quote from the galley.
I can talk about the inwithin, a house within a house that nobody knows exists, so they can’t find you if you’re in there. I think the ultimate inwithin is the folding of timespace. If you know what a wakefield collider is (I did not), you are already one step ahead. You can easily google it.
Diaz harmonizes fact and fiction, and I will hijack this one passage that is irresistible to me (forgive me Riverhead): “Time is a measure of disorder...time, for us, moves only in one direction...But what if...we could account for every state? There would be no disarray. Once we master this new technology, we will be able to recognize the disorder that is time...Timelines could bifurcate or conjoin according to our design. … We will need a new language to express this, since nothing would be potential anymore.”
Diaz plies linguistics, science of technology, the technology of science, all the emotion and the cerebral of it, the whole world in the palm of Ply .
Thank you, Riverhead, for giving me my favorite book of this year, and many others—past, present, and future.
ALL THE FEELS
AL THE THINKS
I am stricken; I am conquered. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Reading Hernan Diaz’ Ply was both emotionally riveting and intellectually challenging, my favorite kind of book. Four hundred or more years into the future, we are both advanced and primitive. Money is absent—we barter or use gold. Health care and usual medicine has morphed into a kind of necessary spiritual healing of the Great Lakes due to minimal medication access. Social networks are crude since the Suppression (just how it sounds plus no federal government) and other events have knocked out civilization as we know it now. But there are still some educated scientists who are progressive, and one older woman who is determined to “work with the loom of the universe” to “weave and unweave spacetime itself.” If that doesn’t sound reasonable, read the novel. Immerse yourself. Note that paradoxes rule.
The power of language is consummate.
The voltage of words had me thinking of the Talmud. Being Jewish, I was introduced early to how individual words can shape reality—words aren’t static, they have the power to create and destroy. Words are an objective reality from which existence springs. That happened to me while I read PLY. Point of view is plied as a glimmering tool to augment Time and Space.
The main characters are the unnamed pincher—she steals and preserves and buttresses electricity, often to power punk rock concerts that appeal to her. Then there is Pola, the scientist, an older woman, who teams up with the pincher. There are also gangster type madmen that the pincher needs to accomplish tasks. She is an orphan—her mother was a self-taught tinkerer (like an engineer in our time) and her father was a bookseller who disappeared during the Suppression. A third character come is late—I won’t spoil--as this character emerges in the last eighth of the book.
I do not have the alacrity of language to articulate (the fission and fusion of) this book. If an event horizon could be a novel, then Hernan Diaz is in the vicinity. His acrobatic linguistics fuels the story, commanded me through the parts I didn’t understand. He reminded me at times of David Mitchell, combining the familiar propulsion of plot with the erudite and inscrutable enigma of physics and other sciences. Speculative and stunning, alarming and hopeful. The best part? I didn’t see AI. Climate change was understated. (Pardon me calling physics inscrutable. I want a round table discussion of leading particle, theoretical, and quantum physicists-- but with Hernan Diaz leading the discussion).
There’s too much of the infrastructure (or lack of it) that I haven’t mentioned. I’m trying to keep my review condensed. I want to quote from this book—especially the phenomenal paradoxes like how freezing the laws of science serve to perpetuate it; phrases like blind and all-seeing; genuinely fake, and other opposites that define the indefinable. But I’m reading from an advanced copy—this advanced copy is actually an early copy—dicey to quote from the galley.
I can talk about the inwithin, a house within a house that nobody knows exists, so they can’t find you if you’re in there. I think the ultimate inwithin is the folding of timespace. If you know what a wakefield collider is (I did not), you are already one step ahead. You can easily google it.
Diaz harmonizes fact and fiction, and I will hijack this one passage that is irresistible to me (forgive me Riverhead): “Time is a measure of disorder...time, for us, moves only in one direction...But what if...we could account for every state? There would be no disarray. Once we master this new technology, we will be able to recognize the disorder that is time...Timelines could bifurcate or conjoin according to our design. … We will need a new language to express this, since nothing would be potential anymore.”
Diaz plies linguistics, science of technology, the technology of science, all the emotion and the cerebral of it, the whole world in the palm of Ply .
Thank you, Riverhead, for giving me my favorite book of this year, and many others—past, present, and future.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Hernan Diaz is extraordinary. His three novels have been remarkably different, and all have been successful. His latest novel, Ply, is an inventive story with a memorable main character. The plot moves along nicely for the most part.
I don’t like reviews that just tell the story (unless I’m looking back after I’ve forgotten too much). However, because this book hasn’t been published yet, I included enough below to give readers a sense of the situation at hand. No spoilers.
Ply will be published at the end of September 2026. It is set in a future dystopian New York City (500 years from now). Diaz describes the end of the “modern era,” which sounds like where we are headed if things don’t change. Democratic states are faltering, there is an unending caste system, inalienable rights become meaningless, and our devices have redefined who we are (see pages 158-160 for more details about this and optimism about where they are going as a society). In this future NYC, there is no government; private corporations handle security for the select few; electricity is scarce; people live in buildings that are falling apart and are being taken over by vegetation; people barter or, a few rich ones, use gold. There is, however, a thriving music scene. Diaz’s world building is excellent, as is his writing.
The unnamed protagonist is referred to as “the pincher” in the middle section of the novel; her work is stealing electricity from the grid, saving it in “bricks”, and bartering the bricks for things she needs. Her backstory is rich and is threaded throughout the beginning of the book. Her father disappeared in The Suppression and her mother died when she was a pre-teen. She survives by staying with a family friend and then makes it on her own. The details of her life and the (mostly peculiar and/or unsavory) people that she associates with are established in the first part of the book, which is written in the first person. She partners with a woman named Sol and they share a house across the river (Brooklyn?) where few people live or go. The Pincher is a strong sympathetic character.
Things turn a bit strange in the third person second part, when she meets an old woman names Pola who is a bit of a mad scientist trying to build a particle accelerator that will change the fabric of reality. There are several sections that go into detail about physics, real and imagined, that went way over my head and which I didn’t enjoy much when I was reading it, but I found them interesting when re-reading sections and trying to make sense of them. When I was involved with the pull of the story, I had less patience to try to follow the details. I won’t say anything about the ending, which gets stranger still, but is very engaging.
What makes the novel remarkable is the writing, the world building, the characters and their relationships with the pincher, and the level of detail of it all. The unnamed protagonist is the only fully developed character, although we learn enough about the others to make the story engaging. Diaz also writes about the concept of self and what it means. I could quote at length, but will not. One of the interesting parts of the book is that it expresses hope that the conditions are ripe for a future utopian community. What gives this character hope - how social order has changed to something that sounds barely above survival - is described in detail.
At over 450 pages, Ply is not a quick read, nor would you want to read it quickly. I felt fully involved most of the time (science aside) and cared about the main characters. I assume the title refers to the verb “ply”- how the main character works diligently, plying her work as a tinker for survival.
I don’t like reviews that just tell the story (unless I’m looking back after I’ve forgotten too much). However, because this book hasn’t been published yet, I included enough below to give readers a sense of the situation at hand. No spoilers.
Ply will be published at the end of September 2026. It is set in a future dystopian New York City (500 years from now). Diaz describes the end of the “modern era,” which sounds like where we are headed if things don’t change. Democratic states are faltering, there is an unending caste system, inalienable rights become meaningless, and our devices have redefined who we are (see pages 158-160 for more details about this and optimism about where they are going as a society). In this future NYC, there is no government; private corporations handle security for the select few; electricity is scarce; people live in buildings that are falling apart and are being taken over by vegetation; people barter or, a few rich ones, use gold. There is, however, a thriving music scene. Diaz’s world building is excellent, as is his writing.
The unnamed protagonist is referred to as “the pincher” in the middle section of the novel; her work is stealing electricity from the grid, saving it in “bricks”, and bartering the bricks for things she needs. Her backstory is rich and is threaded throughout the beginning of the book. Her father disappeared in The Suppression and her mother died when she was a pre-teen. She survives by staying with a family friend and then makes it on her own. The details of her life and the (mostly peculiar and/or unsavory) people that she associates with are established in the first part of the book, which is written in the first person. She partners with a woman named Sol and they share a house across the river (Brooklyn?) where few people live or go. The Pincher is a strong sympathetic character.
Things turn a bit strange in the third person second part, when she meets an old woman names Pola who is a bit of a mad scientist trying to build a particle accelerator that will change the fabric of reality. There are several sections that go into detail about physics, real and imagined, that went way over my head and which I didn’t enjoy much when I was reading it, but I found them interesting when re-reading sections and trying to make sense of them. When I was involved with the pull of the story, I had less patience to try to follow the details. I won’t say anything about the ending, which gets stranger still, but is very engaging.
What makes the novel remarkable is the writing, the world building, the characters and their relationships with the pincher, and the level of detail of it all. The unnamed protagonist is the only fully developed character, although we learn enough about the others to make the story engaging. Diaz also writes about the concept of self and what it means. I could quote at length, but will not. One of the interesting parts of the book is that it expresses hope that the conditions are ripe for a future utopian community. What gives this character hope - how social order has changed to something that sounds barely above survival - is described in detail.
At over 450 pages, Ply is not a quick read, nor would you want to read it quickly. I felt fully involved most of the time (science aside) and cared about the main characters. I assume the title refers to the verb “ply”- how the main character works diligently, plying her work as a tinker for survival.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I love grungy, futuristic dystopian thrillers, so the synopsis of Hernan Diaz's latest novel, ‘Ply’, immediately piqued my interest. The novel opens strongly, with clean, evocative prose conjuring a vivid portrait of a collapsed America several hundred years in the future, where energy has become a scarce and fiercely contested resource. The world-building is superb, and the concept of "pinching"—illegally siphoning electricity from the grid to sell on the black market—is particularly compelling. I was quickly drawn into the setting, eager to learn more about this fractured society.
Unfortunately, the unnamed pincher proves far less compelling than the world she inhabits. Despite the novel's preoccupation with questions of identity and selfhood, she remains frustratingly opaque; her motivations, desires, and inner life never fully come into focus. Matters are compounded when Diaz abandons the intimacy of the first-person voice in favour of a detached third-person perspective. The shift is clearly intended to reinforce the novel's exploration of identity, but intellectually defensible choices are not always dramatically successful. Here, the effect is to distance the reader from the protagonist at precisely the moment greater emotional investment is needed. Later, the narrative begins oscillating between first and third person—sometimes within the same paragraph—in a way that feels jarring rather than purposeful, much like the novel's inconsistent handling of tense.
The novel's conceptual ambitions ultimately overwhelm its storytelling. Plot and characterisation are both underdeveloped, leaving too few stakes to generate genuine investment. Characters frequently disappear into extended philosophical and scientific monologues that stall the narrative rather than deepen it, often feeling more like vehicles for the novel's ideas than fully realised people. I found myself increasingly wishing for the discussions to end, for the pace to quicken, and for the story promised by the opening chapters to reassert itself. It never quite does.
For me, ‘Ply’ is at its most engaging when it follows the pincher and her role within the underground music scene. Once the physicist enters the narrative, the focus shifts away from lived experience towards abstract theorising, and much of the novel's early momentum is lost. Were I inclined to abandon books midway through, this is where I would have stopped reading. Even so, I persevered in the hope that the ending would pull its various threads together more convincingly, but I found the conclusion no more satisfying than what had come before.
Ultimately, ‘Ply’ left me disappointed not because its ideas lack ambition, but because they come at the expense of compelling characters and an engaging story. Its imaginative world and intriguing premise deserve a narrative with greater emotional weight and dramatic momentum.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Hernan Diaz, and Picador for the ARC.
⚠️ Death of parent, death, grief, injury detail, fire injury, murder, drug use, drug abuse
Unfortunately, the unnamed pincher proves far less compelling than the world she inhabits. Despite the novel's preoccupation with questions of identity and selfhood, she remains frustratingly opaque; her motivations, desires, and inner life never fully come into focus. Matters are compounded when Diaz abandons the intimacy of the first-person voice in favour of a detached third-person perspective. The shift is clearly intended to reinforce the novel's exploration of identity, but intellectually defensible choices are not always dramatically successful. Here, the effect is to distance the reader from the protagonist at precisely the moment greater emotional investment is needed. Later, the narrative begins oscillating between first and third person—sometimes within the same paragraph—in a way that feels jarring rather than purposeful, much like the novel's inconsistent handling of tense.
The novel's conceptual ambitions ultimately overwhelm its storytelling. Plot and characterisation are both underdeveloped, leaving too few stakes to generate genuine investment. Characters frequently disappear into extended philosophical and scientific monologues that stall the narrative rather than deepen it, often feeling more like vehicles for the novel's ideas than fully realised people. I found myself increasingly wishing for the discussions to end, for the pace to quicken, and for the story promised by the opening chapters to reassert itself. It never quite does.
For me, ‘Ply’ is at its most engaging when it follows the pincher and her role within the underground music scene. Once the physicist enters the narrative, the focus shifts away from lived experience towards abstract theorising, and much of the novel's early momentum is lost. Were I inclined to abandon books midway through, this is where I would have stopped reading. Even so, I persevered in the hope that the ending would pull its various threads together more convincingly, but I found the conclusion no more satisfying than what had come before.
Ultimately, ‘Ply’ left me disappointed not because its ideas lack ambition, but because they come at the expense of compelling characters and an engaging story. Its imaginative world and intriguing premise deserve a narrative with greater emotional weight and dramatic momentum.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Hernan Diaz, and Picador for the ARC.
⚠️ Death of parent, death, grief, injury detail, fire injury, murder, drug use, drug abuse
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
[Thanks to Penguin Random House for the review copy!]
Hernan Diaz is counting down: where his Pulitzer-winning Trust was a triptych of interweaving (and conflicting) accounts, you could say that his follow-up, Ply, is a book about bifurcation. It’s a tale of two cities, two tenses, and two halves, split between a first-person tale of post-apocalyptic vagabondism and a third-person dive into hard sci-fi. While both parts have their strengths, the transition, though formally ambitious, isn’t quite seamless.
The first half benefits from rich world-building, with intriguing glimpses into the various cultures populating a vastly depopulated city (New York, in all but name) that is being slowly reclaimed by nature. For a book largely about electricity and technology, it’s Diaz’s descriptions of the natural world that impress the most, especially as it encroaches on civilization: “Corners blurring under grass and shrubs. The urban grid dissolving. No right angles in nature.” But while his prose dazzles in passages like this — and in the profound ideas he nestles into random paragraphs like philosophical Easter eggs — there’s a formality to his writing that suited Trust's long-tail view of history but that can feel distancing in a more personal story like Ply. Still, the narrative builds toward a number of curious, grounded mysteries in its first half, which makes the hard jump to the second half’s theoretical sci-fi feel like a bit of a come-down.
Not that the ideas explored in the back half aren’t interesting; a lot of genre stories claim to be dealing with powers that could “change the fabric of reality,” but rarely do they take those words as literally as here. The theoretical physics on display are as dizzying as they are obviously well-researched, and their world-altering potential eventually takes its first steps by impacting the very form of the book we’re reading, with tenses colliding as the characters and narratives begin to literally fold in on themselves — call it meta-physics. It’s undeniably bold stuff, but while it might be thematically appropriate for the ultimate payoff to be more asymptotic than decisive, the book becomes slowly less compelling the more it turns towards the infinite vanishing point of the interior and away from the fascinating world it establishes in its first half.
Still, there aren’t many authors working with this level of craft and creativity, and as a follow-up to a virtuosically austere Pulitzer-winner, it’s a thrill. Next, I’d love to see Diaz devote his boundless intellect fully to a subject he writes so beautifully about within Ply, and whose nature combines the obliqueness that clearly captivates him with the more concrete elements that bring out the best of his talents: music.
(3.5/5 stars)
Hernan Diaz is counting down: where his Pulitzer-winning Trust was a triptych of interweaving (and conflicting) accounts, you could say that his follow-up, Ply, is a book about bifurcation. It’s a tale of two cities, two tenses, and two halves, split between a first-person tale of post-apocalyptic vagabondism and a third-person dive into hard sci-fi. While both parts have their strengths, the transition, though formally ambitious, isn’t quite seamless.
The first half benefits from rich world-building, with intriguing glimpses into the various cultures populating a vastly depopulated city (New York, in all but name) that is being slowly reclaimed by nature. For a book largely about electricity and technology, it’s Diaz’s descriptions of the natural world that impress the most, especially as it encroaches on civilization: “Corners blurring under grass and shrubs. The urban grid dissolving. No right angles in nature.” But while his prose dazzles in passages like this — and in the profound ideas he nestles into random paragraphs like philosophical Easter eggs — there’s a formality to his writing that suited Trust's long-tail view of history but that can feel distancing in a more personal story like Ply. Still, the narrative builds toward a number of curious, grounded mysteries in its first half, which makes the hard jump to the second half’s theoretical sci-fi feel like a bit of a come-down.
Not that the ideas explored in the back half aren’t interesting; a lot of genre stories claim to be dealing with powers that could “change the fabric of reality,” but rarely do they take those words as literally as here. The theoretical physics on display are as dizzying as they are obviously well-researched, and their world-altering potential eventually takes its first steps by impacting the very form of the book we’re reading, with tenses colliding as the characters and narratives begin to literally fold in on themselves — call it meta-physics. It’s undeniably bold stuff, but while it might be thematically appropriate for the ultimate payoff to be more asymptotic than decisive, the book becomes slowly less compelling the more it turns towards the infinite vanishing point of the interior and away from the fascinating world it establishes in its first half.
Still, there aren’t many authors working with this level of craft and creativity, and as a follow-up to a virtuosically austere Pulitzer-winner, it’s a thrill. Next, I’d love to see Diaz devote his boundless intellect fully to a subject he writes so beautifully about within Ply, and whose nature combines the obliqueness that clearly captivates him with the more concrete elements that bring out the best of his talents: music.
(3.5/5 stars)
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thanks to Riverhead Books and NetGalley for the egalley of Ply.
I am finding it difficult to express in a cogent fashion how I feel after just finishing Hernan Diaz's Ply. Part of me feels like I've just finished a novel that attempts to work with some serious and hard ideas about reality, space-time, and the very nature of what constitutes a "person." To attempt to write about these subjects in a novel shows some true initiative or ambition on the part of Diaz to expand the novel form, to reshape it somewhat to accommodate these head-spinning subjects. For the most part, these are actually the sections of the novel I enjoyed most. I love a novel that forces a reader to actually think about what they're reading, a novel that makes the reader wonder about the reality they take for granted. Some parts of the final chapters are just technically amazing, the writing shifting points of view rapidly, giving a sense of a person coming into being and then transforming into another in the space of a sentence. A heady novel.
But those sections I enjoyed were also part of a longer novel where some of the elements just didn't come together for me. I am not a frequent reader of science fiction, and I'm not sure if Ply is technically a SF novel, but I had some trouble with the world of Ply. I got the sense that this world is supposed to be four or five hundred years into the future, its location probably what remains of New York city. But there were still cars (albeit battery powered) in the city? While the majority of the residents of the city struggle to get enough to survive, bartering for necessities, there is apparently an area called the Great Lakes where it sounds like people still live with many of the luxuries we enjoy today, with doctors and scientists still working, with new, boxed toys. Somewhere in this world, there are still manufacturing plants that can create the infrastructure for a super collider, who can engineer near ethereal components? When I picture the United States 500 years into the future after a collapse of the government, I imagine something much different than the world of Ply.
But that's my problem. Despite my issues with some of the world-building, the broader focus of Ply makes it a very worthy novel. Diaz is a wonderful writer, and he can carry you through page after page of the story almost effortlessly. There are many great interactions between the characters, great humor and pathos, wonderful descriptions of the music from this time. It is a big novel, in the classic tradition: think Dickens, or even Dostoevsky.
Ply is not perfect, but with its big ambitions and ideas it still has plenty to offer any reader willing to engage with it.
I am finding it difficult to express in a cogent fashion how I feel after just finishing Hernan Diaz's Ply. Part of me feels like I've just finished a novel that attempts to work with some serious and hard ideas about reality, space-time, and the very nature of what constitutes a "person." To attempt to write about these subjects in a novel shows some true initiative or ambition on the part of Diaz to expand the novel form, to reshape it somewhat to accommodate these head-spinning subjects. For the most part, these are actually the sections of the novel I enjoyed most. I love a novel that forces a reader to actually think about what they're reading, a novel that makes the reader wonder about the reality they take for granted. Some parts of the final chapters are just technically amazing, the writing shifting points of view rapidly, giving a sense of a person coming into being and then transforming into another in the space of a sentence. A heady novel.
But those sections I enjoyed were also part of a longer novel where some of the elements just didn't come together for me. I am not a frequent reader of science fiction, and I'm not sure if Ply is technically a SF novel, but I had some trouble with the world of Ply. I got the sense that this world is supposed to be four or five hundred years into the future, its location probably what remains of New York city. But there were still cars (albeit battery powered) in the city? While the majority of the residents of the city struggle to get enough to survive, bartering for necessities, there is apparently an area called the Great Lakes where it sounds like people still live with many of the luxuries we enjoy today, with doctors and scientists still working, with new, boxed toys. Somewhere in this world, there are still manufacturing plants that can create the infrastructure for a super collider, who can engineer near ethereal components? When I picture the United States 500 years into the future after a collapse of the government, I imagine something much different than the world of Ply.
But that's my problem. Despite my issues with some of the world-building, the broader focus of Ply makes it a very worthy novel. Diaz is a wonderful writer, and he can carry you through page after page of the story almost effortlessly. There are many great interactions between the characters, great humor and pathos, wonderful descriptions of the music from this time. It is a big novel, in the classic tradition: think Dickens, or even Dostoevsky.
Ply is not perfect, but with its big ambitions and ideas it still has plenty to offer any reader willing to engage with it.
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 received from NetGalley
2.5 / i was so excited to read my first hernan diaz novel and really wanted to like this. ultimately, it had some
really strong elements; but unfortunately, the balance of those elements and how the book was overall constructed generally did not work for me. personally, i had a tough time getting through it once i realized that certain choices were going to be defining features of the book.
what i liked
writing: i probably read the opening paragraph like 5 times. on a line level, diaz’ writing is often beautiful, poetic, nuanced, and thoughtful. for the first 20% or so when i was trying to be more open-minded about the parts that didn’t work for me, i found the reading experience very meditative.
character: i really appreciated diaz’ ability to paint many characters with such nuance. it’s kind of a marvel that the main character, who i imagined to have a fairly flat affect, was depicted so vividly. i also often found myself appreciating many of the meta-observations about human nature and social interactions that the narrator would make.
what i had a tough time with
monologues: a few characters enjoyed long, dense, sometimes purposely nonsensical monologues. i get it as a rare device to make real a certain state of intensity or disorientation or annoyance for the reader, but it was utilized too much for my taste.
verbosity / over-descriptiveness: scene setting is certainly one of diaz’ strengths. but it feels like large swathes of the book are focused on painting scenes and environments, and taking certain observations and dialogues to lengths that notably outweighed my interest and attention. lastly, sometimes the same meta-observations i enjoyed were too many or would veer into a bit too much “telling.” entirely possible that some might find these things to be heaven.
plot: i can get down with a quiet or plot-light novel if the vibe is engaging enough for me— which may well be the case for other folks! but despite the lovely writing and thoughtful character observations, i found myself lost in what to me felt like a lot of bloat. and thus, i struggled with pace and locking into greater a sense of plot / stakes.
to me, it’s clear that my critiques are related to certain fundamental choices re: the overall stylistic construction and content focus of the book. it didn’t exactly feel like the book lost itself, but more like it was trying to occupy a very specific space that just wasn’t for me. maybe it will be for you, though.
for what it’s worth, i still want to give diaz’ other books a try.
really strong elements; but unfortunately, the balance of those elements and how the book was overall constructed generally did not work for me. personally, i had a tough time getting through it once i realized that certain choices were going to be defining features of the book.
what i liked
writing: i probably read the opening paragraph like 5 times. on a line level, diaz’ writing is often beautiful, poetic, nuanced, and thoughtful. for the first 20% or so when i was trying to be more open-minded about the parts that didn’t work for me, i found the reading experience very meditative.
character: i really appreciated diaz’ ability to paint many characters with such nuance. it’s kind of a marvel that the main character, who i imagined to have a fairly flat affect, was depicted so vividly. i also often found myself appreciating many of the meta-observations about human nature and social interactions that the narrator would make.
what i had a tough time with
monologues: a few characters enjoyed long, dense, sometimes purposely nonsensical monologues. i get it as a rare device to make real a certain state of intensity or disorientation or annoyance for the reader, but it was utilized too much for my taste.
verbosity / over-descriptiveness: scene setting is certainly one of diaz’ strengths. but it feels like large swathes of the book are focused on painting scenes and environments, and taking certain observations and dialogues to lengths that notably outweighed my interest and attention. lastly, sometimes the same meta-observations i enjoyed were too many or would veer into a bit too much “telling.” entirely possible that some might find these things to be heaven.
plot: i can get down with a quiet or plot-light novel if the vibe is engaging enough for me— which may well be the case for other folks! but despite the lovely writing and thoughtful character observations, i found myself lost in what to me felt like a lot of bloat. and thus, i struggled with pace and locking into greater a sense of plot / stakes.
to me, it’s clear that my critiques are related to certain fundamental choices re: the overall stylistic construction and content focus of the book. it didn’t exactly feel like the book lost itself, but more like it was trying to occupy a very specific space that just wasn’t for me. maybe it will be for you, though.
for what it’s worth, i still want to give diaz’ other books a try.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The first thing to say about this is that I am usually very suspicious of established literary writers coming into the SF genre. Often you find that a lauded visionary novel of ideas is just covering ground that the science fiction peons exhausted years or decades before, and often better. But there can be no argument that Diaz has done his homework here, especially as he wants to show you most of it. This book features page and pages of discussion on particle physics, which personally I could dig, but it’s safe to say your mileage might vary. It’s not a textbook though, Diaz is interested in the philosophical ramifications of the subatomic world, which leads to some interesting ruminations, if not any actual entertainment.
My opinion of this book swung wildly throughout reading it. The setting initially put my back up, because it’s described as being set around five hundred years from now, but there is no sense at all of that gulf of history. I mean, think about how different 1526 was from today and then try to play that forward, but that kind of differential doesn’t exist here, and it feels maybe eighty years from now. Once I’d got over that I enjoyed the story of the pincher and her precarious existence in a decaying city, then I hit a dip as the second part moves into the aforementioned scientific and philosophical digressions. There are plenty of interesting ideas here, but it doesn’t exactly get you racing through the pages. The plot of the novel then gets wrapped up far too easily with no surprises, and I was prepared to call the whole thing a miss, but the closing thirty or forty pages (I read an eARC, can’t give you an exact number) are extraordinary. There is some excellent writing here, as the prose becomes an actual example of the ideas outlined earlier, rather than just a vehicle for discussing them.
All in all, this is an extremely ambitious book that doesn’t quite hit the mark for me. When it’s firing, it’s very good, but there are enough longueurs and quibbles to prevent me really loving it.
As a side note, it’s interesting that Emily St John Mandel’s Exit Party coming out at roughly the same time, covers some broadly similiar ground. Maybe the next wave of American fiction is all about societal breakdown plus physics. If so I am here for it.
My opinion of this book swung wildly throughout reading it. The setting initially put my back up, because it’s described as being set around five hundred years from now, but there is no sense at all of that gulf of history. I mean, think about how different 1526 was from today and then try to play that forward, but that kind of differential doesn’t exist here, and it feels maybe eighty years from now. Once I’d got over that I enjoyed the story of the pincher and her precarious existence in a decaying city, then I hit a dip as the second part moves into the aforementioned scientific and philosophical digressions. There are plenty of interesting ideas here, but it doesn’t exactly get you racing through the pages. The plot of the novel then gets wrapped up far too easily with no surprises, and I was prepared to call the whole thing a miss, but the closing thirty or forty pages (I read an eARC, can’t give you an exact number) are extraordinary. There is some excellent writing here, as the prose becomes an actual example of the ideas outlined earlier, rather than just a vehicle for discussing them.
All in all, this is an extremely ambitious book that doesn’t quite hit the mark for me. When it’s firing, it’s very good, but there are enough longueurs and quibbles to prevent me really loving it.
As a side note, it’s interesting that Emily St John Mandel’s Exit Party coming out at roughly the same time, covers some broadly similiar ground. Maybe the next wave of American fiction is all about societal breakdown plus physics. If so I am here for it.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Where Hernan Diaz’s Pulitzer prize-winning “Trust” served up a Russian nesting-doll tale set during the Great Depression that explored the secrets behind a couple’s rise to wealth, “Ply” is set in a dystopian America a few hundred years in the future.
The State has essentially dissolved and only two institutions remain: Flow (water) and Tensor (electricity), strictly overseen by a private security force known as CTS. Nature has the upper hand as all kinds of critters roam through the crumbling buildings of a decimated city where black markets thrive, drug abuse is rampant, and the elderly are mysteriously absent.
The story of the unnamed central character, an orphaned young woman known only as a “pincher,” is told in flashbacks alternating with current events. This pincher--whose mother was a gifted tinker, repairing and refashioning all sorts of items--has herself invented a higher-capacity storage battery that she uses to illegally siphon off electricity from the grid, portable juice that she sells or often freely shares at word-of-mouth concerts to power the instruments of bands she enjoys.
In the pincher’s world, power (electrical) is power (sociopolitical) and when people learn about her new battery, she begins to attract attention from well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning characters.
“Ply” is an ambitious novel with multiple narrative voices (first-person, third-person) that incorporates numerous genres, including sci-fi, thriller, character drama, and philosophical enquiry. It is a mind-bending, time-bending book that draws the reader in with its compelling tale of one spunky girl’s determination to survive in a broken world where people live in the shadows and motivations can range from simple materialist greed to wanting to understand the nature of reality.
Although the story eventually gets bogged down somewhat in the quantum physics weeds (whole stretches of heady exposition), Diaz deserves major credit for trying to marry page-turning suspense with intellectual speculation about the fundamental building blocks of space-time. As is hinted in the title, “Ply” is a novel of many layers, zooming in to the intimate struggles of one lonely girl and out to the furthest reaches of our scientific knowledge about the universe. Recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for providing an advance reader’s copy.
The State has essentially dissolved and only two institutions remain: Flow (water) and Tensor (electricity), strictly overseen by a private security force known as CTS. Nature has the upper hand as all kinds of critters roam through the crumbling buildings of a decimated city where black markets thrive, drug abuse is rampant, and the elderly are mysteriously absent.
The story of the unnamed central character, an orphaned young woman known only as a “pincher,” is told in flashbacks alternating with current events. This pincher--whose mother was a gifted tinker, repairing and refashioning all sorts of items--has herself invented a higher-capacity storage battery that she uses to illegally siphon off electricity from the grid, portable juice that she sells or often freely shares at word-of-mouth concerts to power the instruments of bands she enjoys.
In the pincher’s world, power (electrical) is power (sociopolitical) and when people learn about her new battery, she begins to attract attention from well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning characters.
“Ply” is an ambitious novel with multiple narrative voices (first-person, third-person) that incorporates numerous genres, including sci-fi, thriller, character drama, and philosophical enquiry. It is a mind-bending, time-bending book that draws the reader in with its compelling tale of one spunky girl’s determination to survive in a broken world where people live in the shadows and motivations can range from simple materialist greed to wanting to understand the nature of reality.
Although the story eventually gets bogged down somewhat in the quantum physics weeds (whole stretches of heady exposition), Diaz deserves major credit for trying to marry page-turning suspense with intellectual speculation about the fundamental building blocks of space-time. As is hinted in the title, “Ply” is a novel of many layers, zooming in to the intimate struggles of one lonely girl and out to the furthest reaches of our scientific knowledge about the universe. Recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for providing an advance reader’s 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.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
3 stars rounded up from 2.5
I am a big fan of Hernan Diaz’ earlier novel, Trust which I highly recommend. Ply doesn’t hit that high mark for me, although I still appreciate the quality of the writing.
STORY: This is a dystopian thriller set centuries in the future in an unnamed American city. Society and the state have been dismantled through some unspecified human action. Life expectancy is low because of a lack of medicine and medical care and the birth rate has plummeted. The streets are dangerous and unruly and policed by a private company, with another company having a monopoly over electricity distribution. The main character the “Pincher” is an orphan who makes her living by pinching electricity from the grid and selling it on the black market, in particular to power music gigs.
This book is part dystopian thriller, part meditation on the concept of self and identity and part an exploration of scientific, ethical and philosophical questions.
I enjoyed:
- the world building and from the start I was drawn into the PIncher’s life and her struggle to survive
- the questions raised by the book about capitalism and privatisation (the police and electricity): similar themes to Diaz’ Trust
- the edgy paranoid atmosphere: ‘True paranoia comes about when one’s own paranoia becomes the object of one’s own paranoia. That’s why I decided to ignore the gaze I’d felt across the night and got to work”.
- that there’s a good twist near the end.
I wasn’t so sure about:
- the shift in narrator part way through the book: from a first person narrative by the Pincher to third person. That flung me out of the story and I found it jarring.
- the long scientific monologues spouted by some of the characters. Diaz had clearly done extensive research for this work, but this interrupted the story and made the pacing lag.
I am always impressed by a writer like Diaz who is capable of switching genres (see the British writer, Rupert Thompson for example), but if you are new to Diaz I would start with Trust which was a real page turner.
Thank you to Pan Macmillan (Picador) and Net Galley for an ARC of this novel.
#hernandiaz #ply #literaryfiction #bookerlonglist
I am a big fan of Hernan Diaz’ earlier novel, Trust which I highly recommend. Ply doesn’t hit that high mark for me, although I still appreciate the quality of the writing.
STORY: This is a dystopian thriller set centuries in the future in an unnamed American city. Society and the state have been dismantled through some unspecified human action. Life expectancy is low because of a lack of medicine and medical care and the birth rate has plummeted. The streets are dangerous and unruly and policed by a private company, with another company having a monopoly over electricity distribution. The main character the “Pincher” is an orphan who makes her living by pinching electricity from the grid and selling it on the black market, in particular to power music gigs.
This book is part dystopian thriller, part meditation on the concept of self and identity and part an exploration of scientific, ethical and philosophical questions.
I enjoyed:
- the world building and from the start I was drawn into the PIncher’s life and her struggle to survive
- the questions raised by the book about capitalism and privatisation (the police and electricity): similar themes to Diaz’ Trust
- the edgy paranoid atmosphere: ‘True paranoia comes about when one’s own paranoia becomes the object of one’s own paranoia. That’s why I decided to ignore the gaze I’d felt across the night and got to work”.
- that there’s a good twist near the end.
I wasn’t so sure about:
- the shift in narrator part way through the book: from a first person narrative by the Pincher to third person. That flung me out of the story and I found it jarring.
- the long scientific monologues spouted by some of the characters. Diaz had clearly done extensive research for this work, but this interrupted the story and made the pacing lag.
I am always impressed by a writer like Diaz who is capable of switching genres (see the British writer, Rupert Thompson for example), but if you are new to Diaz I would start with Trust which was a real page turner.
Thank you to Pan Macmillan (Picador) and Net Galley for an ARC of this novel.
#hernandiaz #ply #literaryfiction #bookerlonglist
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Ply is Hernan Diaz’s first novel since winning the Pulitzer Prize for Trust, and the two could not be more different. Ply is an outright science fiction novel, set in a dystopian future where energy is a valuable commodity. Our protagonist is a “pincher”, stealing energy discreetly and storing it in batteries that can then be sold. She’s also grown up amongst tinkers and inventors and learned more than a few tricks, allowing her to create a battery much more powerful and efficient than any other on the market - and attracting some unwanted attention.
From here, the scale grows exponentially. It’s science fiction that is heavy on the science, with quite in-depth discussions about particle accelerators, atoms and quarks. Ultimately I found it really fun and difficult to put down. As dystopian fiction goes, this doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but the plot moves so quickly that I enjoyed it enough to overlook the points that feel a little cliche or familiar. Diaz’s writing is propulsive and cinematic, I could visualise every scene and every character. But it’s also very of its time - side characters talk like characters rather than people, one in particular having a quirky, quippy, Jeff Goldblum-ish energy that leaves this feeling more like a product of its time than an all time sci-fi classic.
There’s also something to be said for the merits of subtlety; there is none to be found here. The novel wants desperately to be surprising, but also wants to telegraph the surprises repeatedly, incessantly, throwing a cheeky wink to anyone remotely paying attention. I get the sense that Hernan Diaz is one of those people who buys you a present, but truly cannot resist dropping hints about what he’s bought you - by the time your birthday rolls around, you’re not even sure why he bothered to wrap it, you both know what’s inside, he’s practically told you a thousand times.
Overall I liked this quite a bit! It’s flawed, but its flaws aren’t major and I still had a good time. It just comes so close to being great and slightly misses the mark, that it’s hard not to also feel a little frustrated.
From here, the scale grows exponentially. It’s science fiction that is heavy on the science, with quite in-depth discussions about particle accelerators, atoms and quarks. Ultimately I found it really fun and difficult to put down. As dystopian fiction goes, this doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but the plot moves so quickly that I enjoyed it enough to overlook the points that feel a little cliche or familiar. Diaz’s writing is propulsive and cinematic, I could visualise every scene and every character. But it’s also very of its time - side characters talk like characters rather than people, one in particular having a quirky, quippy, Jeff Goldblum-ish energy that leaves this feeling more like a product of its time than an all time sci-fi classic.
There’s also something to be said for the merits of subtlety; there is none to be found here. The novel wants desperately to be surprising, but also wants to telegraph the surprises repeatedly, incessantly, throwing a cheeky wink to anyone remotely paying attention. I get the sense that Hernan Diaz is one of those people who buys you a present, but truly cannot resist dropping hints about what he’s bought you - by the time your birthday rolls around, you’re not even sure why he bothered to wrap it, you both know what’s inside, he’s practically told you a thousand times.
Overall I liked this quite a bit! It’s flawed, but its flaws aren’t major and I still had a good time. It just comes so close to being great and slightly misses the mark, that it’s hard not to also feel a little frustrated.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I'm swinging between loving and not-much-loving this book. And I don't think it's possible to land on just one.
When you finish the book, you'll see what I just did there.
This is going to be one of those books people either love and think is transformative, or they'll think it's dull and didn't go anywhere or have any purpose. I can see both sides.
Here's what I loved:
- The very far future New York (it's just called the city, but we all know it's New York) where not many humans survived a post-apocalyptic nuclear war has amazing world-building. There are lush descriptions of nature taking back the buildings, factions between human groups, and hints at people all dying young.
- The 'pinching' and subculture of going to concerts reminded me of Station Eleven, where survival is insufficient, and art is needed to feel human.
- Our main character is a loner and paranoid at times, but she's resourceful and a perfect vehicle to move the reader through the story.
-
What I question or didn't love:
- Part two gets bogged down with technical details. Yes, Diaz did a ton of research, and it shows. But having one full chapter be dedicated to describing the theory behind the technical work is a momentum killer. It's as if Diaz was too caught up in "getting it right" that he forgot the main reason people read fiction: to be entertained.
- Even though I love The Pincher, she was a little bland and didn't show many unique qualities. She could have been anyone.
I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Story: 4 stars
Character Development: 3 stars
Writing: 5 stars
When you finish the book, you'll see what I just did there.
This is going to be one of those books people either love and think is transformative, or they'll think it's dull and didn't go anywhere or have any purpose. I can see both sides.
Here's what I loved:
- The very far future New York (it's just called the city, but we all know it's New York) where not many humans survived a post-apocalyptic nuclear war has amazing world-building. There are lush descriptions of nature taking back the buildings, factions between human groups, and hints at people all dying young.
- The 'pinching' and subculture of going to concerts reminded me of Station Eleven, where survival is insufficient, and art is needed to feel human.
- Our main character is a loner and paranoid at times, but she's resourceful and a perfect vehicle to move the reader through the story.
-
What I question or didn't love:
- Part two gets bogged down with technical details. Yes, Diaz did a ton of research, and it shows. But having one full chapter be dedicated to describing the theory behind the technical work is a momentum killer. It's as if Diaz was too caught up in "getting it right" that he forgot the main reason people read fiction: to be entertained.
- Even though I love The Pincher, she was a little bland and didn't show many unique qualities. She could have been anyone.
I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Story: 4 stars
Character Development: 3 stars
Writing: 5 stars
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I really enjoyed Trust, so I was very pleased to receive an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher of Diaz's latest novel, Ply, and what a book this is! There were definitely moments of 'what just happened'? Followed by 'okay, I think I'm starting to get it', only to find myself back at 'I'm completely mind-boggled again.'
Ply is hugely ambitious, bringing together electricity, science, reality, identity, and some very big philosophical questions about time, space, and what it means to be human. Set in a futuristic Sofia, against a backdrop of societal collapse and technological change, the story follows the Pincher, an electricity thief who makes a new type of storage brick, which eventually brings her into contact with the scientist Pola.
There is a LOT of science in this book, and I struggled with quite a bit of it. You don't necessarily need to understand every scientific detail, but you do need to concentrate, stop and think, and sometimes go back and read something again. Diaz takes us into a completely different way of thinking about reality. I would have liked faster pacing at times, and I personally sometimes felt that the sheer amount of information got in the way of the story.
The final section left me wanting a little more clarity too. I could see what Diaz was exploring; identity, relationships, friendship, transformation, and the nature of reality, but I wasn't always sure that I understood exactly what had happened. And yet, I think I might want to read it again! I suspect I'd notice things the second time around that completely passed me by on the first.
I also loved the title. Ply can mean a layer or fold, and that seems particularly fitting for a novel concerned with layers of time, space, reality, and identity. This was a mammoth book, full of head spinning ideas, and while I admired its ambition, I didn't always enjoy the journey. I think there is a brilliant book here, but for me personally, it was sometimes too dense and demanding.
Ply is hugely ambitious, bringing together electricity, science, reality, identity, and some very big philosophical questions about time, space, and what it means to be human. Set in a futuristic Sofia, against a backdrop of societal collapse and technological change, the story follows the Pincher, an electricity thief who makes a new type of storage brick, which eventually brings her into contact with the scientist Pola.
There is a LOT of science in this book, and I struggled with quite a bit of it. You don't necessarily need to understand every scientific detail, but you do need to concentrate, stop and think, and sometimes go back and read something again. Diaz takes us into a completely different way of thinking about reality. I would have liked faster pacing at times, and I personally sometimes felt that the sheer amount of information got in the way of the story.
The final section left me wanting a little more clarity too. I could see what Diaz was exploring; identity, relationships, friendship, transformation, and the nature of reality, but I wasn't always sure that I understood exactly what had happened. And yet, I think I might want to read it again! I suspect I'd notice things the second time around that completely passed me by on the first.
I also loved the title. Ply can mean a layer or fold, and that seems particularly fitting for a novel concerned with layers of time, space, reality, and identity. This was a mammoth book, full of head spinning ideas, and while I admired its ambition, I didn't always enjoy the journey. I think there is a brilliant book here, but for me personally, it was sometimes too dense and demanding.
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August 25, 2026I am in awe of writers who can manipulate our world as it is today into a dystopian future that seems both distant from our current reality and plausibly close. Hernan Diaz has done that with his new novel, Ply.
The novel centers on an unnamed narrator, known as “the pincher”. She is an orphan and uses her skills to “pinch” electricity from the company that controls it to charge batteries (bricks) for use by private clients – mainly music concerts by her favorite bands. As the story opens, the pincher has developed a new type of brick that will hold much more power. Later, we are introduced to two other women: Pola, a scientist who is working on her own major advancements, and a young, homeless woman who binds the pincher and Pola together. The work these women are doing attracts the attention of many who want to control it, including the powerful and the corrupt. I won’t say more about the plot to avoid spoilers.
My favorite thing about Ply is the worldbuilding. Diaz transported me to his future world, dropped me in, and kept me there with his lush, immersive prose. I could see, smell, hear, and touch the rewilding city (probably once New York). Just fantastic. I also loved that his main character was both an electrician and mechanical expert, and a woman. And that her collaborators including other strong women. Bravo. Finally, even in this very bleak future, music and art were central to the human experience. Very reminiscent of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, and I was glad to see that theme show up here. Art is critical.
There were times when I felt the second half got bogged down in the science. Part 2 also changed narration from first person to third, which made sense for the story but created some narrative distance. For those reasons, I enjoyed Part 1 more than Part 2. Overall, this was a very good story, set in an incredible world, and I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to enjoy the ride. Thanks to Riverhead Books, Hernan Diaz, and NetGalley for providing this copy of Ply for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
The novel centers on an unnamed narrator, known as “the pincher”. She is an orphan and uses her skills to “pinch” electricity from the company that controls it to charge batteries (bricks) for use by private clients – mainly music concerts by her favorite bands. As the story opens, the pincher has developed a new type of brick that will hold much more power. Later, we are introduced to two other women: Pola, a scientist who is working on her own major advancements, and a young, homeless woman who binds the pincher and Pola together. The work these women are doing attracts the attention of many who want to control it, including the powerful and the corrupt. I won’t say more about the plot to avoid spoilers.
My favorite thing about Ply is the worldbuilding. Diaz transported me to his future world, dropped me in, and kept me there with his lush, immersive prose. I could see, smell, hear, and touch the rewilding city (probably once New York). Just fantastic. I also loved that his main character was both an electrician and mechanical expert, and a woman. And that her collaborators including other strong women. Bravo. Finally, even in this very bleak future, music and art were central to the human experience. Very reminiscent of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, and I was glad to see that theme show up here. Art is critical.
There were times when I felt the second half got bogged down in the science. Part 2 also changed narration from first person to third, which made sense for the story but created some narrative distance. For those reasons, I enjoyed Part 1 more than Part 2. Overall, this was a very good story, set in an incredible world, and I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to enjoy the ride. Thanks to Riverhead Books, Hernan Diaz, and NetGalley for providing this copy of Ply for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
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