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The new novel from Thomas Pynchon 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 labour-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. Before he knows it, he finds himself on 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.
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.
Report
Pynchon's gift has always been his ability to render America in its full strangeness . . . The book is full of exuberance. Pynchon's sentences themselves are so alive, so pleasurable . . . The fact that Shadow Ticket is brilliant and prescient isn't a surprise; that it exudes so much joy and sensuousness is Megan Nolan Daily Telegraph
