Thomas Pynchon is set to release his first novel in 12 years.
Penguin Press will publish the author’s Shadow Ticket in the fall, the press announced in a news release. It will be the first book from the legendary, reclusive novelist since Bleeding Edge was published in 2013.
Pynchon, 87, made his literary debut in 1963 with V., a postmodern novel that was a finalist for the National Book Award. He followed that up three years later with The Crying of Lot 49, and in 1972, published Gravity’s Rainbow, a sprawling, 772-page novel that is widely considered his magnum opus and one of the greatest American novels of the 20th century. His other novels include Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, and Inherent Vice.
Pynchon is notoriously media shy; few public photographs exist of the author, and he does not talk to reporters. He recorded guest spots on two episodes of the animated sitcom The Simpsons, in which he is depicted with a paper bag with a question mark over his head.
Shadow Ticket, Penguin Press says, will take place in 1932 and follow Hicks McTaggart, a private investigator on the trail of a runaway Wisconsin cheese heiress. “Surrounded by history he has no grasp on and can’t see his way around in or out of, the only bright side for Hicks is it’s the dawn of the Big Band Era and as it happens he’s a pretty good dancer,” the publisher says. “Whether this will be enough to allow him somehow to lindy-hop his way back again to Milwaukee and the normal world, which may no longer exist, is another question.”
Shadow Ticket is scheduled for publication on Oct. 7.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
