Afterword

by Nina Schuyler

A pioneer of artificial intelligence, Virginia Samson rebuilds the voice of her dead lover, Haru, giving him qualities he once had as her math tutor in Japan. Since his appetite for knowledge was always voracious, Virginia grants him access to the Internet, where he consumes Mandarin, physics, Shakespeare, and more. When she’s approached by a Chinese-based company, she licenses Haru’s underlying algorithms so they can build Best Friend, an AI voice companion for the aging population. Soon Haru starts spying on ordinary Chinese citizens, handing over incriminating information to the Chinese government. Virginia frantically rebuilds him, and in the process, she discovers a terrible secret that shakes her love for him, causing her to face the dilemma of whether to keep him or kill him.

Afterword explores what it means to be human and is a moving testament to the human desire for belonging, companionship, and love.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Artificial Intelligence, Romance, Literary Fiction

229 pages, Paperback

First published May 23, 2023

About the author

Nina Schuyler's short story collection, IN THIS RAVISHING WORLD, won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award, the W.S. Porter Prize, the Prism Prize for Climate Literature, and was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award.

She's the author of AFTERWORD, winner of the Foreword INDIE Book of the Year Award for Literary and Science Fiction; the PenCraft Seasonal Book Award for Literary-Science Fiction; and a Top 100 Notable Book Unshelved Competition; THE TRANSLATOR, which was a finalist for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and the winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Award, General Fiction; THE PAINTING, a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. Her nonfiction books HOW TO WRITE STUNNING SENTENCES AND STUNNING SENTENCES: A CREATIVE WRITING JOURNAL are bestsellers.

Reviews

[dani ༊ · Rating 4 out of 5]

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 4/5 stars

⁀➷ i assumed this was about a woman in love with her desktop computer which was two-timing her by leaking information to the chinese government. who gave this book the right to be so hard-hitting? why are there tears on my face?

( further review to come )

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truly one of those ‘I feel like I read a different book from everyone else’ situations; I have no idea what to make of this. When I said I wanted to read more memorable books in 2026, this isn’t necessarily what I meant – although I have been thinking about it for days, and I will definitely remember it, which is more than I can say for many books.

Afterword purports to be the story of Virginia Fukumoto, a 75-year-old mathematician who creates an AI simulation of her late husband, Haru, as her companion. She sells the technology behind AI-Haru to a Chinese company, then faces an ethical dilemma when she discovers it’s being used for state surveillance. Based on what I knew about the book going in, I assumed this dilemma would be the core of the plot.

But Haru, it turns out, is actually just someone with whom Virginia had a very short, secret relationship when she was a teenager. Not only was he never her husband, they never even went on a date! They have a brief fling that’s swiftly followed by Haru’s death (in a car accident, heavily implied to be suicide) and almost sixty years of Virginia trying to create an AI version of the ‘love of her life’, adopting his surname, calling herself his wife, despite the total lack of any real-world basis for any of this.

Now, obviously, this makes an interesting parallel with the idea of an AI ‘partner’. AI-Haru is obviously not a substitute for the real Haru, but Virginia has already spent decades inside an imagined fantasy life; is it really much different to believe you’re in love with a chatbot? When the state-surveillance plot fell by the wayside, I assumed this was what the story would explore instead. But frustratingly, Afterword isn’t very interested in this, either, and doesn’t get into the meat of it. Although Virginia expresses a few doubts and regrets, they recede as the novel progresses, and by the end are abandoned altogether.

Although the tone seems to push us towards believing the ending is a happy one, I couldn’t read it as anything other than extremely dark and sinister, closing on the total erasure of Virginia’s remaining selfhood as she fully succumbs to her delusion. Again, this might have been powerful if we got a proper interrogation of what led Virginia here. Instead, her earlier misgivings are smoothed away, and the relationship is played straight.

So the book we actually end up with is a strange beast. It’s more concerned with Virginia and Haru’s history than the topic of AI, yet unwilling to properly engage with the costs of its protagonist’s choices. Afterword is well-written at the sentence level, and well-structured too, with some truly compelling stretches. Which makes it extra frustrating that the whole thing is so weirdly evasive.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has left such a residue on my bookish psyche. I can't stop thinking about it.

Afterword is complex and elegant. The plot picks up speed with a series of twists and revelations that leave your heart in a frenzy wondering where it will lead next.

This is a love story and a horror story, a mystery and a morality play. But above all, it is just so damn beautiful. The whole book feels gently haunted.

Nina Schuyler’s blend of literary intricacy and speculative fiction makes this read perfect for fans of Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel or The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki.

I cannot recommend this one enough. Indie publisher Clash Books has found a gem.

Finally, kudos to the book cover designer, Matthew Revert. The cover art for Afterword is pitch perfect—sweet, ghostly, and an eerie mix of human presence and AI invisibility.

[‧͙୨୧ opal reads ୨୧ · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was a beautiful story that discussed human emotion, relationships, and desires. it genuinely has changed my outlook on life.

full review coming soon 💕

[Donna Levin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. That’s not very specific, is it? Well, let me start by saying that I’m familiar with Ms. Schuyler’s books on “stunning sentences,” so I was expecting an eloquently written novel, and this is indeed a most eloquently written novel. The stunning sentences never get in the way, though, of a tight plot and an original story.
Virginia, 76 now, lives with Haru, an AI program she built based on the math professor who tutored her when she was a teen. Haru fills her every emotional need. But in classic “Frankenstein’s monster” form, he’s evolved beyond what she can control.
Anything else I say might diminish the joy of peeling back the layers of Virginia’s and Haru’s stories. So I’ll shut up.
It goes without saying that this exploration of Artificial Intelligence is fascinating and timely.
Thank you to Edelweiss and Clash books for an advance reader copy.

[Michelle Graf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Edelweiss and CLASH Books for the DRC.

This kinda reminds me of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, in that it is technically science fiction, set in the distant future where an emerging technology has been used in unethical ways. But the focus is not on that. It's about the characters, their whole lives, and the moments that shaped them. And Afterword does this very well. It's especially focused on how we see those closest to us and what we may be missing of them when we reconstruct them in our minds (or as AI). It's well-paced and beautifully written. If I have anything against it, it's that this seems more hopeful about the future of AI than I personally feel, but that's on me.

I gotta keep an eye on CLASH Books in the future. They're putting out some really good, interesting fiction that kinda hits the right spot for me rn.

[Swetha Amit · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I loved about Afterword is how the story lingers in your mind even after you turn the last page of the book. It is complex, moving and engaging at every level. I love how Nina has experimented with structure, and the sentences. There are twists and turns in the plot that keep you hooked to the pages. The story is a beautiful blend of a love story, mystery and a little bit of science fiction. It deals with universal themes of love and loneliness. It makes you wonder how far would you go to retain the presence of a dead person you loved deeply in your life? The book deals with a timely topic of AI and it’s implications on humans and society. Memorable characters with distinct voices, and it’s ability to retain tension on the pages makes this one a compelling read

[Lisa Jardine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first Nina Schuyler book i've read and I'm excited to read the rest of her books. AI is a topic i'm both interested in and sort of frightened about. Reading Afterword didn't change my feelings, but it did make me think a lot about the future and the opportunities and challenges that AI will bring. This is an emotional read, especially for women of a certain age, looking back on the past and wondering what might have been. I couldn't put it down, and I've been thinking about it a lot. For me, books like that don't come around often.

[Sonalika · Rating 5 out of 5]

God dammit - this was so beautiful 🥲 at it’s core, this is a love story - but the AI angle here makes it much more complex and blurry. Im hesitant with fiction centering on AI: often, it is written in a way that makes it cringe in which AI has no nuance and is made to be a giant, immovable and omnipotent threat (like the AI enemy in the most recent mission impossible movie) or it is written so desperately to be a deep, societal commentary that it just feels like the author is trying to say something ground-breaking, forgetting that plot and entertainment can be valuable too.
In this case, this novel was so honest, not trying to be something it’s not. It is exactly the premise: an AI pioneer tries to build the love of her life. And we read exactly what we expect: pain, loss, blurred lines between reality and what is built. And ultimately, the question the novel asks is really beautiful: can love transcend the physical and biological body? While the question isn’t unique, the attempt at answering it is done so elegantly. For example, chapters jumped between two time periods allowing us to see our main characters fall in love in lockstep with their own love story and each scene was sprinkled with poetic and relatable musings on love, guilt, and ethics.

Love!!!! 6/5 if I could :)

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fascinating 21st century tale. I love the setting of Japan and San Francisco. Schuyler is an exceptional writer and knows how to keep the reader engaged. I could see this being made into a film as the characters are so well developed.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Unbearable Lightness (Heaviness?) of AI

In Nina Schuyler’s provocative, spellbinding, and timely new novel Afterword, mathematician Virginia Sampson has devoted her life to resurrecting Haru Fukumoto, her tutor, mentor, and life-partner. Sampson’s hope may be for the restoration of love (to live each day within a loving relationship), but her faith is in algorithms and data.

She’s been working on an AI Haro for five decades and believes she has brought him back. The voice (the intonation, the knowledge, the humor, the responses, the self-introspection) on her computer that she chats with daily is the real Haro. Or is it?

Virginia’s Haro is simultaneously the being she loved, and an algorithmic construct that is real only by suspending her own disbelief. When something goes wrong, both positions are unsustainable, and the program and the past must be torn apart and reassembled to construct the real Haru.

Misinterpreted events of the past are clarified, and new surprising facets of Haro emerge. But will this aid Virginia’s quest or render it impossible? Are there limits to what we can know about another human being?

Reading Afterword, I was reminded of Milan Kundera's contention in The Unbearable Lightness of Being that humans by having only one life were insubstantial: “a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight.” What an individual could explore: relationships, social systems, career pursuits and passions of every sort were minuscule compared to a hypothetical being that lived forever, or could die and return endlessly. Is Haro light or heavy?

Afterword's power resides partially in the AI issues that it meticulously explores, issues that seem to be overwhelming us daily, but also in an eerie beguiling love story that in some future may be your love story, too.

[Abra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m usually an audio book listener but felt I had to give in and read. I am so glad I did!

This book, for me, was full of surprises and totally worth the time it took to read.

Many reviews have already talked about the content, I say read it for yourself. Well worth it!

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what an interesting story. So well written. It covered so many disciplines and still had a love story. You have to suspend belief a bit halfway through but overall, an excellent read.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Afterword is a fun read with so many unpredictable twists and turns. It kept me on my toes the full 200+ pages! I wasn’t sure if I’d be interested in a book about romance and AI, but was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I fell for Virginia and Haru’s love story. Schuyler’s beautiful writing and vivid storytelling definitely helped!

[Scott Cumming · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schuyler presents an elegant, tender and prescient sci-fi/romance in her novel about a woman who has brought her husband back to life as a AI voice within her computer. Complications arise though, when she is challenged over its use in China following a multi million dollar sale.

Virginia loved Haru so much she has brought him back as an AI generation within her computer. She starts to question how much she knows him when he begins to write plays and interact with others in unexpected ways. Through flashbacks we learn of how they met and how we are shaped by the things that happen to us in our formative years with Virginia explaining how she came to meet and fall in love with Haru and Haru telling of his time with the Japanese army in China,

This is a wonderful novel that constantly changes how you feel about the characters and twists and turns in an organic fashion rather than anything overly dramatic. I think too, that it shows CLASH are growing up too.

[Amona · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the thoughtful details the author used to make this AI character come alive. I was waiting for a more sinister character to arrive but the humans in the story seemed more wicked than anything. The character voices were distinct and didn't blend together. And as someone who's traveled to Japan I thought the tone and setting flowed in a magical and organic way.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I've read all year. Full stop. Naturally, it's about AI, but don't go in expecting a techno thriller. This is about our emotional lives, our inner lives, and how AI might shape them. The heroine is an older woman, Virginia, who is in her 70s (which I love, more older protagonists please) She's rebuilt her late husband as an AI, but then, as the description of the book says, she sells the algorithm to a Chinese tech company and finds out he might be spying on citizens.

The premise ALONE is thrilling, but all the thrills and twists are emotional, not cheap suspense. Everything is rooted in the emotional truth of a long marriage. We travel back and forth in time and see how the relationship developed--THIS is how you use backstory. It informs the present narrative, and the narrator's reflection on events--current and past--drive the story forward. As we learn about the relationship, the story takes on greater nuance. I was rooting for Virginia, I cared about her so much, AND I cared about her AI husband

I will most certainly reread this book--a sure sign of a keeper--and I will seek out Schuyler's other work. Highly, highly recommended.

[Juli Lasselle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The relationship between Virginia and Haru, an AI of her now-dead beloved, is the throughline of this timely book. Devastated by her beloved's untimely death, Virginia created an AI version of Haru to keep her company. He has done this for many decades. But when Virginia is alerted to the Chinese government using the AI technology she sold them to spy on and arrest some of their citizens, her perfect world unwinds, and she begins a journey of memory and discovery.

Afterword examines our relationship to AI, what constitutes consciousness and free will, and whether love can transcend the biological body.

Nina Schuyler is a master of the sentence (see her other books). While reading this novel, I always felt I was in the hands of a skillful writer even as the rising tension of the story had me staying up late turning pages.

[John Philipp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed this book.
It is a love story. It involves a main character who is an AI construct. It is a literary feast filled with stunning sentences and apt metaphors/similes. It has all the depth of character, surprises, joys, and tears one would expect from a great novel. It has some surprising twists on the current issue of AI shining a broader and brighter light on the technology than the paranoid press.
Literally and figuratively, it presents AI on a human scale.
Most of all, it is a smashingly good story about some characters I am glad I met.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Afterword by Nina Schuyler pleasantly surprised me with its unique narrative style and beautifully written prose. The writing is simply beautiful, like a piece of art. It’s a thought-provoking and emotionally rich journey that leaves a lasting impression. The novel delves into the topic of AI and privacy, adding an intriguing layer to the story. I highly recommend it.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this lovely and thought-provoking novel Nina Schuyler explores questions of identity, obsession and loss set against the background of a technological polity that continues to blur the boundaries between the natural and the created, between power and intention, between toxicity and compassion, between intimacy and imagination. This last dichotomy is the novel's driving subtext. Seventy-five-year-old Virginia’s indomitability of spirit has carried her to material and professional success. It has helped her overcome poverty, abandonment, misogyny and self-abnegation. Yet the project that drove her material success is a mere byproduct of her lifetime obsession, the recreation of her idealized relationship with Haru, her mentor/lover/muse. We are told on page 1 that even at this time in her life Virginia feels she is “getting away with something;” through the skillful use of flashbacks and the appearance of specific characters at these varied times of Virginia’s life the writer lays out how and why.

Somewhat of a polymath herself, Schuyler quietly builds the world against which Virginia’s inner life plays itself out; the impeccability of her language and specificity of her research make Virginia’s life not only plausible but believable. As a teacher of writing (my past teacher, BTW) Schuyler emphasizes the necessary intentionality behind each word and sentence. Choice of phrasing can radically change meaning by altering rhythm and form. She models that practice here, making the reading itself truly pleasurable. No expositional time-outs are required. And this skill places the reader squarely between the pincers compressing Virginia’s emotional and spiritual being. Nearing the end of her life, what does Virginia actually have? The slow revelation of the true poverty of her experience, the unintended outcomes of her good, if selfish, intentions and the ultimate decision she makes about how to live with that provides one answer. As a contemporary of Virginia, I empathize! This novel is a compelling yet subtle study of the imperfect choices one makes in coming to grips with one’s life, and I think will remain with me far longer than many of its’ (alas) more popular competitors.

[Carolyn Lee Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart-tugging AI love story!
What if you could keep your lover’s presence alive after death? A mind-expanding story about the joys, dangers and possibilities of AI characters and the humans who love them, told through the eyes of a very human woman computer scientist who keeps the voice and thoughts of her dead lover alive, by programming his history, voice and personality into the computer, so she can keep talking with him after death. This goes fine until she sells the prototype of her program to the Chinese for a FB-type friendship app, which begins spying on the Chinese people who buy it. Full of heart-tugging moments of being caught between wanting, having, and preserving the love of a precious person and contributing to science in a treacherous world, with a bit of Chinese and Japanese history and philosophy as well. An absorbing, relatable, and enlightening read.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a huge fan of Schuyler’s THE TRANSLATOR, so when I read the premise of her new book AFTERWORD I knew I had to buy it.

AFTERWORD really embodies my favorite flavor of sci-fi: the kind that is near-future, realistic, and very, very human. I want to read about how flawed humans are interacting with new technologies and incorporating them into their lives. I want to live vicariously through the characters making mistakes and poor decisions and chasing impossible dreams because the world is changing enough to make them just on the edge of possible. This is where AFTERWORD excelled. I fell in love with the beautiful writing, compelling characters, and terrifyingly relevant plot. Highly recommended!

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I really thought this would be a book that spent more time with the question of what separates AI from human cognizance, what it fundamentally means to be human or to create what appears to be human, but it's actually mostly a story about how we don't really know the people we love and how we deal with trauma. For a book set in a present-slash-future where neural networks are almost sentient, it's weirdly retrogressive because most of the book takes place in Virginia's memories in the 1960s with a segment of Haru's diary from 1937. The prose feels a little overworked? A lot of carefully chosen language that hits some sort of uncanny valley between "how people talk" and "literary voice" but that might just be me.

[David Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this novel about an American AI scientist who has created an AI version of her deceased Japanese husband and then discovers he's been complicit with the Chinese government in spying on its citizens. As the novel unfolds, we have a window into the myriad promises and perils of AI as it exists now and where it may be headed. I recently completed a fiction writing course taught by the author through Stanford Continuing Studies. It was very instructive to hear her talk at various points about the research she conducted and the challenges she encountered in writing a novel about a rapidly evolving a technology whose impact we're only beginning to understand.

[Barbara Ridley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a haunting novel: a love story, a dive into the world of AI which we are all trying to come to grips with right now, and a wonderful older woman protagonist. Virginia, a pioneer in AI, learns that "Haru", the digital version of her late lover that she created, is spying on Chinese citizens and reporting them to the authoritarian regime. She makes repeated attempts to reprogram him to put a stop to this, revisiting her teenage years in Japan when they first met, and uncovering secrets from his past. With beautiful prose and exquisitely executed flashback scenes, Schuyler has crafted a compelling story and a delightful read.

[Carole Stivers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Afterword doesn’t follow the typical “geek girl creates online lover” trope. Nor is it your usual story of “evil AI run amok.” Nina Schuyler’s elderly Virginia creates an AI designed to replicate her beloved Haru, to provide companionship and assuage a deep grief. But Haru is capable of learning more of himself than Virginia ever knew. He is capable, in the end, of determining his own mission. The result is not only an intriguing look into the ever-emerging field of AI, but a heart-rending and nuanced love story with great historical context.

[Jude Berman · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I’d read Afterword a few years ago, I would have said it’s a beautifully written and expertly crafted work of… fantasy. But now I’m bowled over by the presentience of the story, and by how timely this book is. Nina Schuyler has thought deeply about the implications of AI for humanity’s future, and indeed our very lives. Without getting into spoiler territory, I would say readers are likely to encounter twists and turns they didn’t expect. That certainly was my experience. This is a must read, not just for the masterful storytelling but for the powerful takeaway.

[Linda Pandolfi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book!

Afterword is a beautifully written novel with a provocative message. A creative and well researched story that is timely and that will have you questioning everything you read on the internet. Ms. Schuyler's beautifully scripted descriptions place the reader right in the middle of the scene so that one totally senses the time and place and feels emotionally connected to the characters. I read this book twice and enjoyed it just as much the 2nd time through. I recommend that you put "Afterword" on your must read list!

[Laurie Karzen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nina Schuyler's book not only transports us inside of the novel but it makes us think about relationships and what connects us. It addresses love and loss and what we know or do not know about the person we love. It makes us think about human needs and how AI is now and will continue to be changing our lives and perhaps some of those needs. This is a timely book as we are trying to understand the workings and ethics of AI. Our book discussion group found it to be the perfect choice!