Shadow Ticket - by Thomas Pynchon (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation business shifting from labor-management relations to the more domestic kind. Hicks McTaggart, a one-time strikebreaker turned private eye, thinks he's found job security until he gets sent out on what should be a routine case, locating and bringing back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune who's taken a mind to go wandering. By the time Hicks catches up with her he will find himself entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, practitioners of the paranormal, outlaw motorcyclists, and the troubles that come with each of them"--

Book Synopsis

The new novel from Thomas Pynchon, bestselling and award-winning author of Gravity's Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland, and Inherent Vice.

"A masterpiece." --The Telegraph

"Bonkers and brilliant fun." --The Washington Post

"Late Pynchon at his finest. Dark as a vampire's pocket, light-fingered as a jewel thief, Shadow Ticket capers across the page with breezy, baggy-pants assurance -- and then pauses on its way down the fire escape just long enough to crack your heart open." --Los Angeles Times

Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation business shifting from labor-management relations to the more domestic kind. Hicks McTaggart, a onetime strikebreaker turned private eye, thinks he's found job security until he gets sent out on what should be a routine case, locating and bringing back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune who's taken a mind to go wandering. Before he knows it, he's been shanghaied onto a transoceanic liner, ending up eventually in Hungary where there's no shoreline, a language from some other planet, and enough pastry to see any cop well into retirement--and of course no sign of the runaway heiress he's supposed to be chasing. By the time Hicks catches up with her he will find himself also entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, practitioners of the paranormal, outlaw motorcyclists, and the troubles that come with each of them, none of which Hicks is qualified, forget about being paid, to deal with. 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. 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.

Review Quotes

"Bonkers and brilliant fun . . . rollicking, genially silly and ultimately sweet . . . Of all living novelists, Pynchon may have the most distinct voice -- a clipped tough guy patois delivered with the rhythms of borscht belt comedy, amplified by an endless appetite for linguistic play -- that has proved largely inimitable. It's not just that no one else writes quite like Pynchon; it's that no one even tries. The endless accumulation of incident pulls you along, but sometimes you have to stop to marvel at any given sentence, much as you might at a 170-foot-tall bottle of ketchup that suddenly looms above you during a road trip." --The Washington Post

"Late Pynchon at his finest. Dark as a vampire's pocket, light-fingered as a jewel thief, Shadow Ticket capers across the page with breezy, baggy-pants assurance -- and then pauses on its way down the fire escape just long enough to crack your heart open. Only now can we finally see that Pynchon has been quietly assembling -- one novel at a time, in no particular order -- an almost decade-by-decade chronicle no less ambitious than Balzac's La Comédie Humaine, August Wilson's Century Cycle or the 55 years of Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury. This is his Pynchoniad, a zigzagging epic of America and the world through our bloodiest, most shameful hundred years. Perhaps suffering from what Pynchon called in V. our 'great temporal homesickness for the decade we were born in, ' he has now filled in the only remaining blank spot on his 20th century map: the 1930s." --Los Angeles Times

"A masterpiece . . . Between the novel's sheer weirdness, its obscurity, its evocative 1930s setting and its joyously Raymond Chandler-esque dialogue - pinging back and forth between hard-boiled men and harp-tongued broads, I enjoyed Shadow Ticket more than any other Pynchon . . . The fact that Shadow Ticket is brilliant and prescient isn't a surprise; that it exudes so much joy and sensuousness is. To have had the career Pynchon had, and still be so invigorated by your work, is all any novelist can ask. I hope this isn't his last hurrah - but if it is, what a way to go out." --The Telegraph (5/5 stars)

"A literary triumph . . . A gloriously language-driven detective novel that waits for no one." --The Boston Globe

"With his casually playful and chillingly resonant ninth novel, Pynchon delivers a warning against global fascism, a slapstick symphony whose antic comedy can't begin to conceal its hopelessly broken American heart . . . Belying his reputation as an intimidating genius of weighty ideas and unresolved plots, Pynchon is simply telling it like it is: life is crushing, and nothing's ever over. The novel's heart-freezing finish is as plaintively moving as anything he's ever done. Irresistible and deeply satisfying, this makes clear Pynchon's powers remain undiminished." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

About the Author

Thomas Pynchon is the author of V.; The Crying of Lot 49; Gravity's Rainbow; Slow Learner, a collection of short stories; Vineland; Mason & Dixon; Against the Day; Inherent Vice; and Bleeding Edge. He received the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974.