Thomas Pynchon

Famously reclusive, elusive, and allusive, Thomas Pynchon is the closest thing the American literary scene has to a mythical being (not counting such literally mythical characters as JT LeRoy and maybe Danielle Steel). It remains a marvel that in the age of the Smoking Gun, the guy has so successfully guarded his privacy, but it’s even more of a marvel that he keeps producing fat, dense, head-thumping novels that deliver challenges and gratification in almost direct proportion. Pynchon’s latest—coming almost ten years after the stupendous, 784-page Mason & Dixon—checks in at 1,120 pages, and according to the author’s own description, “the sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.” In other words, Against the Day is a typical Pynchon novel.