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Ply by Hernan Diaz

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Ply

Publisher
Pan Macmillan
Publish Date
24 September 2026
Run Time
14 hours 48 minutes
Format
Audiobook

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What to expect

'Ply is majestic . . . 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

These are the last moments of the world as it's always been known. Reality now begins anew.


The internationally bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Trust turns to America's future with Ply.


Centuries from now, an orphan adrift in an American city grows up to become a pincher – someone who steals electricity from the grid to sell it on the black market or, in her case, to power the underground music scene she adores. It is a high-risk life, and now she is being followed.

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 groundbreaking experiment that, if she can source the electricity to power it, 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. Both an electrifying thriller and a profound novel of ideas, it offers a hopeful glimpse of a new world that may be growing out of the cracks and fissures we see all around us.

'Ply is a wild ride' - Service95
'I highly recommend [it]' - Sarah Jessica Parker
'Compulsively readable' - Oprah Daily


Readers are blown away by Ply:

'It shook my soul the way only true art can'
'My favorite book of this year'
'In my view, he is perhaps the most important novelist of this century'
'What a phenomenal, ambitious novel'
'Rarely has a novel left me feeling that my relationship with the universe itself has subtly changed'
'A masterfully creative work of fiction'

Critics Review

  • 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

See more reviews
  • 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

User Reviews

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Details

Author
Hernan Diaz
Narrator
Imani Jade Powers
Duration
14 hours 48 minutes
Release Date
24 September 2026
ISBN
9781037407208
Format
Audiobook
Publisher
Pan Macmillan
Genre
Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Speculative fiction, Thriller: organised crime / gangland crime, Technothriller, Narrative theme: environmental issues / the natural world, Narrative theme: social issues / social problems

Synopsis

'Ply is majestic . . . 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 AtlasThese are the last moments of the world as it's always been known. Reality now begins anew.The internationally bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Trust turns to America's future with Ply.Centuries from now, an orphan adrift in an American city grows up to become a pincher – someone who steals electricity from the grid to sell it on the black market or, in her case, to power the underground music scene she adores. It is a high-risk life, and now she is being followed.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 groundbreaking experiment that, if she can source the electricity to power it, 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. Both an electrifying thriller and a profound novel of ideas, it offers a hopeful glimpse of a new world that may be growing out of the cracks and fissures we see all around us.'Ply is a wild ride' - Service95'I highly recommend [it]' - Sarah Jessica Parker'Compulsively readable' - Oprah DailyReaders are blown away by Ply:'It shook my soul the way only true art can''My favorite book of this year''In my view, he is perhaps the most important novelist of this century''What a phenomenal, ambitious novel''Rarely has a novel left me feeling that my relationship with the universe itself has subtly changed''A masterfully creative work of fiction'

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