Some smart people need to lighten up; if any smart person ever needed to quit lightening up, it’s Thomas Pynchon. Possessed by one of the most awesome writing talents of any living writer, he fills ...

Our columnist picks the year’s outstanding books. By Alida Becker With the famously private novelist enjoying a (private) moment in the sun, we reached out to die-hard fans who’ve tuned in to the ...

Shadow Ticket starts with a bang. “The explosion when it comes seems to be from somewhere across the river and nearer the Lake,” Thomas Pynchon writes. “Nobody seems surprised.” In language and ...

It’s a big deal when the writer many consider the greatest living American novelist publishes his first novel in 12 years. That the writer, Thomas Pynchon, is 88, and the novel, “Shadow Ticket,” is so ...

Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon’s latest (and, for an octogenarian author, possibly last) novel, opens with a bang. It is 1932, and Hicks McTaggart, a private eye in the employ of Unamalgamated Ops and ...

The novelist anticipated our bizarre present. How does his latest book hold up in an age of eroding reality? By Parul Sehgal “Shadow Ticket” follows a dancing private eye on the hunt for a missing ...