"Electrifying and smart, Who Knows You By Heart is part thriller, part prophecy, part gift and all the way live."--Junot Diaz
‘Scintillates with light and warmth…And it’s hilariously funny. The view of Big Tech through Olivia the coder’s eyes is delicious. I absolutely loved this book.’ —Alison Bechdel
Part social thriller, part modern love story, Who Knows You by Heart is a sly, witty, and endlessly discussable tale of Big Tech, new money, relationships, race, and discovering what’s real in an age of artificial intelligence.
Octavia Crenshaw, a Jamaican-American coder living in Manhattan, is broke, burned out, and haunted by her parents’ deaths. Desperate to pay off some debts, she ditches her nonprofit job for a high-paying gig at Eustachian Inc., a Big Tech company that specializes in audio entertainment. Language, communication, human connection—these are the markets Eustachian wants to revolutionize...and dominate.
Octavia finds herself swept up in the world of the Tech Titans, with its lure of instant riches and its seemingly limitless future. But as one of Eustachian’s very few Black employees, Octavia is uncomfortably aware of things that seem to escape her coworkers: unexplained tech glitches, cryptic remarks, a mysterious secret floor in the corporation’s gleaming headquarters.
But she sets her suspicions aside when she’s recruited by another Black coder—the infuriating but attractive Walcott—to collaborate on a secret project code-named Zion. Zion is a new kind of AI-powered storytelling, one that’s programmed to be free from the racist and sexist biases that plague other AI products. Zion could launch Eustachian into a bold new future and make its developers super rich while righting all kinds of injustices. Octavia and Walcott’s excitement over their creation sets off romantic sparks between the two of them, until they discover a toxic secret about their employer—something that they can’t unlearn, or overlook, but must overcome.
Genre: Science Fiction
‘Scintillates with light and warmth…And it’s hilariously funny. The view of Big Tech through Olivia the coder’s eyes is delicious. I absolutely loved this book.’ —Alison Bechdel
Part social thriller, part modern love story, Who Knows You by Heart is a sly, witty, and endlessly discussable tale of Big Tech, new money, relationships, race, and discovering what’s real in an age of artificial intelligence.
Octavia Crenshaw, a Jamaican-American coder living in Manhattan, is broke, burned out, and haunted by her parents’ deaths. Desperate to pay off some debts, she ditches her nonprofit job for a high-paying gig at Eustachian Inc., a Big Tech company that specializes in audio entertainment. Language, communication, human connection—these are the markets Eustachian wants to revolutionize...and dominate.
Octavia finds herself swept up in the world of the Tech Titans, with its lure of instant riches and its seemingly limitless future. But as one of Eustachian’s very few Black employees, Octavia is uncomfortably aware of things that seem to escape her coworkers: unexplained tech glitches, cryptic remarks, a mysterious secret floor in the corporation’s gleaming headquarters.
But she sets her suspicions aside when she’s recruited by another Black coder—the infuriating but attractive Walcott—to collaborate on a secret project code-named Zion. Zion is a new kind of AI-powered storytelling, one that’s programmed to be free from the racist and sexist biases that plague other AI products. Zion could launch Eustachian into a bold new future and make its developers super rich while righting all kinds of injustices. Octavia and Walcott’s excitement over their creation sets off romantic sparks between the two of them, until they discover a toxic secret about their employer—something that they can’t unlearn, or overlook, but must overcome.
Genre: Science Fiction
Praise for this book
"With prose as provocative as it is entertaining, WHO KNOWS YOU BY HEART brings readers face-to-face with AI in fiction's most original and visceral way yet. A story about the cost of getting ahead without selling your soul, Farley's latest shows that machines are not inert, but living reflections of our own society. This novel couldn't have come at a better time." - Mateo Askaripour
"Electrifying and smart, Who Knows You By Heart is part thriller, part prophecy, part gift and all the way live." - Junot Díaz
"Finally a young brother with a powerful voice, not afraid to say it loud and proud. I welcome him!" - Terry McMillan
"The Black Arts movement of the 1960s began the revolt against Anglo standards and liberated Hispanic, Native American, and Asian American writers. But Black Arts writers were mostly poets. Beginning in 1996, C.J. Farley, Colson Whitehead, Paul Beatty, and Victor LaValle did the same for the Black novel. With his novel about a Black woman's struggles in the world of Big Tech, Farley's 'Who Knows You By Heart' is the first AI novel, and coupled with his vast knowledge of pop culture, he has written a novel about our times." - Ishmael Reed
"Electrifying and smart, Who Knows You By Heart is part thriller, part prophecy, part gift and all the way live." - Junot Díaz
"Finally a young brother with a powerful voice, not afraid to say it loud and proud. I welcome him!" - Terry McMillan
"The Black Arts movement of the 1960s began the revolt against Anglo standards and liberated Hispanic, Native American, and Asian American writers. But Black Arts writers were mostly poets. Beginning in 1996, C.J. Farley, Colson Whitehead, Paul Beatty, and Victor LaValle did the same for the Black novel. With his novel about a Black woman's struggles in the world of Big Tech, Farley's 'Who Knows You By Heart' is the first AI novel, and coupled with his vast knowledge of pop culture, he has written a novel about our times." - Ishmael Reed
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