TICKET TO HIDE?

As the legendary American author releases his long-awaited new novel, Martin Chilton explores Thomas Pynchon's reputation as one of the most elusive writers working today

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The cult of Thomas Pynchon is powerful and will only be bolstered by Shadow Ticket, the 88-year-old writer's first novel in 12 years and one that, as an admirer of much of his previous work, I found to be a rather mixed bag.

Firstly, however, let's deal with the massive Pynchon elephant in the room: the tedious obsession with framing him as the “world’s most reclusive author” (a title once bestowed on The Catcher in the Rye writer JD Salinger). The description was first used in 1963, when New York Times critic George Plimpton wrote: “Pynchon is in his early twenties; he writes in Mexico City - a recluse. It is hard to find out anything more about him.”

It has subsequently been trotted out in thousands of profiles of the author of the novels V (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity's Rainbow (1973), Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), Against the Day (2006) and Bleeding Edge (2013).

The basis of this reclusive reputation is that he has never given a full-length interview to a journalist or broadcaster and declines to attend book signings or literary promotions. He tries to avoid being photographed publicly. When he spoke to a dogged pursuer from CNN television station in 1997, the writer said, with much truth: “Recluse is a code word generated by journalists... meaning ‘doesn’t like to talk to reporters.’” He apparently told one journalist in the 1990s to “get your fucking hand away from me!” when he was offered flesh to press.

As a result, fewer than a dozen images of Pynchon are available. The best known is the black-and-white photograph from his Oyster Bay High School yearbook. There is also an image of him serving in the navy that does the rounds, showing him in a sailor's uniform and with the protruding front teeth of which he was supposedly highly self-conscious.