Thomas Pynchon

Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. (/ˈpɪntʃɒn/ PIN-chon, commonly /ˈpɪntʃən/ PIN-chən; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist. He is known for his dense, complex works of postmodern fiction, which are distinguished by their paranoid tone, absurd humor, and references to history, art, science, and popular culture. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists. Pynchon is notoriously reclusive. Few photographs of him have been published, and rumors about his location and identity have circulated since the 1960s.

Pynchon served two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), and Gravity's Rainbow (1973). For the latter, Pynchon won the 1974 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Pynchon followed with the novels Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), Against the Day (2006), Inherent Vice (2009), which was adapted for film in 2014, and Bleeding Edge (2013). Pynchon's latest novel, Shadow Ticket, was published in 2025.