Elusive novelist Thomas Pynchon will publish his first book this fall, in more than a decade.
This novel “Shadow Ticket” was released by Penguin Press on October 7th and appears to have many of Pynchon's distinctive elements.
Set during the Great Repression in 1932, it follows a Milwaukee Private Eye named Hix McTaggart, who was sent to a mission to find a runaway heir to the Wisconsin Cheese Empire. This everyday mission is dramatically amazed by McTaggart on the Transatlantic Ocean Liner and in Hungary. In pursuit of an unjust heir, he is caught up in the political undercurrents ravaging Eastern Europe. It is intertwined with Nazi, Soviet agents, British counterspies, and swing musicians, crime motorcyclists and paranormal practitioners.
“Shadow Ticket” is Pynchong's tenth book, his first new release since 2013 when he published “Bleeding Edge,” a surreal detective story about a New York City fraud investigator, and it's troubling when he begins digging into the finances of a billionaire executive at a computer security company.
Pynchong cemented his reputation as a literary giant with his third novel, “Gravity's Rainbow.” It is a 760-page postmodern metaphysical masterpiece published in 1973 and won the National Book Award, set in Europe after World War II. In the decades that followed, he continued to captivate critics and readers, with dense, comical, singular works like Vineland, Mason & Dixon, and The Day.
But after more than 60 years as a literary celebrity, 87-year-old Pynchon remained extremely private, still shunned interviews and public events, rarely filmed. (He rejects the label “Riccal Shoeve” after a news crew complained after filming him in Manhattan. The term allowed it to be used by journalists who get frustrated when people don't talk to them.
His opacity is what we want academics and journalists, but adds to his literary charm and mysticity. Many were surprised when Pynchon sold the archives to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California in 2022.
“Shadow Ticket” could inspire new interest and speculation about Pynchon's personal life and heritage. The news statements publishing the publication on Wednesday sounded suspiciously as it might have been written by Pynchon himself, and the Penguin confirmed it was his handiwork: “Surrounded by history. Lindy returns to Milwaukee again and returns to a normal world that may no longer exist, but another matter.”
