Jane Schoenbrun: ‘Entertainment is a filtered version of our traumas’
Jane Schoenbrun discusses their debut novel Public Access Afterworld, conceived as the third installment in a trilogy alongside their films We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow. The narrative follows two teenagers in the mid-2000s encountering figures in television static believed to be glimpses of a subterranean realm, with one disappearing; two decades later, a trans woman named Bethany working in content moderation becomes obsessed with a troubled teenager referencing the same mythology. Schoenbrun describes the 600-page work as employing genre conventions—action, monsters, cults—while maintaining explicit trans and political dimensions. The novelist format permits greater candour and sociological storytelling than cinema, allowing expanded creative control. The conversation explores Schoenbrun’s relationship to television, the novel’s origins in TV scripts, and themes of contemporary eeriness and trauma filtered through entertainment.
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