The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Trust turns to the future with a novel that examines the place of technology in our collective imagination.

Centuries from now, an orphan adrift in an American city grows up to become a pincher. Stealing electricity from the grid to power the vibrant downtown music scene she adores is a risky occupation, and the city she moves through can be dangerous. She is right to be wary. But soon, she is drawn into a paranoid maze where her closest friends and even her own identity are put into question - all while following a thread leading to a scientific experiment that could change the fabric of reality itself. Set in a future filled with both uncertainty and promise, Ply is a powerfully humane novel that interrogates the role of technology in a deeply changed society. A gripping quest for truth at the dawn of a new historical epoch, it offers us a deep dive into the burden of capitalism, while poignantly charting the boundaries of selfhood, and the distance that stands between us and those we love.

Details

ISBN13: 9781037407178
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 464
Edition:
Publication Date: 29 Sep 2026
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 23.9(H)x15.6(L)x3.5(W)574
Weight (gm): 574

Author Biography

Hernan Diaz is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Trust, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. It was named one of The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the Century. His previous novel, In the Distance, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has received the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Kirkus Award, a Whiting Award, and a fellowship from the New York Public Library's Cullman Center. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages. Ply is his third novel.

Reviews

Ply is majestic. A cracked mirror world, a lot like ours; peopled by survivors, a lot like us; sentences so fine they break the skin; a plot that swerves through loss, love, trust, betrayal, art, science, society and control -- David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas
Please, please, please put [Ply] on your list . . . I highly recommend [it] -- Sarah Jessica Parker on Instagram
Ply, like Trust, is a tricksy novel . . . delivers intriguing homilies on technology and ownership that follow on nicely from the themes of Trust . . . the most compelling thread is the one rooted in physics, which tethers Diaz to the present and launches him towards his most exciting ideas about the future -- The Times
An edgy, compelling novel by a writer full of invention -- The i Paper
Diaz brilliantly envisions how love, trust, and loyalty can remain when freedom and justice have collapsed and makes every page exhilarating and meaningful -- Library Journal (Starred Review)
A brainy, challenging, and engrossing trek into a battered but unbeaten future -- Kirkus (Starred Review)
Diaz is juggling an ambitious plot and thorny philosophical questions, yet the novel remains compulsively readable, carried along by intricate worldbuilding and strangely gorgeous evocations of ruin -- Oprah Daily, The Best Books of Fall 2026
Ply is both a touching story of a young woman's struggle to find security and peace . . . and a mind-bending reflection on the nature of time and space. Either story alone would be satisfying, but Diaz cleverly marries them in an intriguing union . . . Ply is a big, ambitious novel . . . Unquestionably the product of a fertile imaginative intelligence -- Shelf Awareness
A fiercely intelligent look at the future of technology, climate and capitalism that will have you gripped – and while no one is judging, it might just be our favourite cover of the autumn -- Elle, The Best New Books for Autumn 2026
A page-turning, pleasurably disorienting, and deeply humane vision of a possible future * Vogue *
After diving into historical fiction with his last two novels, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hernan Diaz brings his unparalleled writing [to] the future . . . [The protagonist’s] journey in [a] dystopian future reflects modern predicaments regarding technology, identity, and control -- Harper's Bazaar
Ply is a wild ride that ultimately asks what survives when everything around us has collapsed. Strap in! -- Service95