Thomas Pynchon's classic post-modern satire, which tells the wonderfully unusual story of Oedipa Maas, first published in 1965.
When her ex-lover, wealthy real-estate tycoon Pierce Inverarity dies and designates her the co-executor of his estate, California housewife Oedipa Mass is thrust into a paranoid mystery of metaphors, symbols, and the United States Postal Service. Traveling across Southern California, she meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not-inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge.

The Crying of Lot 49 (Perennial Fiction Library)

PYNCHON, Thomas

Reference

Harper Perennial Modern Classics

The wild, macabre tale of the twentieth century and of two men - one looking for something he has lost, the other with nothing much to lose - and "V.," the unknown woman of the title.

V. (Perennial Classics)

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

The highly original satire about Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self knowledge.

The Crying of Lot 49 (Perennial Classics)

Literature & Fiction

Literary

The Crying of Lot 49 is the classic novel of conspiracy and self-knowledge by the legendary Thomas Pynchon, now available in an Olive Edition—a lower-priced small format edition with a hip and beautiful package design. The Crying of Lot 49 is the story of Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self knowledge.

The Crying of Lot 49 (Harper Perennial Olive Editions)

Harper-perennial

CRYING LOT 49 (Harper Perennial Deluxe Editions)

Perennial

"The comedy crackles, the puns pop, the satire explodes."--New York Times Thomas Pynchon's highly original, postmodernist classic, a satire of American life about a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a seeming international conspiracy. When her ex-lover, wealthy real-estate tycoon Pierce Inverarity, dies and designates her the coexecutor of his estate, California housewife Oedipa Maas is thrust into a paranoid mystery of metaphors, symbols, and the United States Postal Service. Traveling across Southern California, she meets some extremely interesting characters--including a teenage rock band called the Paranoids, a right-wing historian and critic of the postal system, and a former child actor with whom she has an affair--and begins to unravel conspiracies she suddenly sees all around her. Written in 1966, The Crying of Lot 49 demonstrates the piquant wit and power of invention that are the hallmarks of Pynchon's acclaimed works. It is the shortest of his novels, and widely held to be the benchmark of this literary lion's career.

Crying of Lot 49: A Novel

Harper

"This work may well stand as one of the very best works of the century." —Atlantic Review 
Acclaimed writer Thomas Pynchon's wild, macabre tale of the twentieth century and of two men—one looking for something he has lost, the other with nothing much to lose—and "V.," the unknown woman of the title. 
Pynchon's debut novel follows discharged Navy sailor Benny Profane as he reconnects with an eclectic collection of artists in New York known as the "Whole Sick Crew" along with his sidekick Pig Bodine, and the plot of Herbert Stencil, looking to find the woman he knows only as she is described in his father's diary: "V." 
Brimming with madcap characters, the novel meanders from New York to Alexandria, Cairo, Paris, Florence, and Africa, and traverses generations. Time magazine raves, "Few books haunt the waking or the sleeping mind, but this is one."

V.: A Novel

Mason & Dixon Dumpbin X24

Vintage

This is the first novel by the author of "Gravity's Rainbow", and a profoundly impressive and original work in its own right. The search for the mysterious V ranges from New York to Cairo to Alexandria to Malta. Apart from its strange heroine, the book's characters include sailors, spies, priests, philosophers, bums and bawds.

United States

Vintage Classics

Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem. Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), "a screaming comes across the sky," heralding an angel of death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, "Gravity's Rainbow", refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. Soon Tyrone is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. "Gravity's Rainbow", however, doesn't follow such a standard plot; one must have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns only just past our comprehension. "Gravity's Rainbow" is a blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes.

Gravity's Rainbow

Contemporary

Penguin??Books

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