Thomas Pynchon
Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon
Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon
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One of the Starry Picks for October 2025
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.

Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Thomas Pynchon (born May 8, 1937, Glen Cove, Long Island, NY) is a celebrated American novelist renowned for his complex, postmodern fiction. After naval service and earning an English degree from Cornell University, Pynchon worked as a technical writer before publishing his debut novel,V. (1963). He gained further acclaim withThe Crying of Lot 49 (1966), and his magnum opus, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), which won the National Book Award and is regarded as a landmark in American literature. Other acclaimed works include Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), Against the Day (2006), Inherent Vice (2009), and Bleeding Edge (2013). Pynchon’s novels are characterized by encyclopedic scope, dark humor, and intricate plots exploring paranoia, technology, and modern society. Notoriously reclusive, he rarely appears publicly, fueling his legendary status in contemporary literature.
Product details
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Publication
Penguin Press
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Genre
Science Fiction Crime & Mystery
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Author
Thomas Pynchon
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Language
English
Lexile:
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Pages
304
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ISBN-13
9781594206108