Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon—Private eye Doc Sportello surfaces, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era.
It's been a while since Doc Sportello has seen his ex- girlfriend. Suddenly she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. It's the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," except that this one usually leads to trouble. Undeniably one of the most influential writers at work today, Pynchon has penned another unforgettable book.
In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there...or...if you were there, then you...or, wait, is it...
Editorial Reviews
“Inherent Vice is the funniest book Pynchon has written. It's also a crazed and majestic summary of everything that makes him a uniquely huge American voice. It has the moral fury that's fueled his work from the start — his ferociously batshit compassion for America and the lost tribes who wander through it.” —Rolling Stone
“Pynchon's prose is so casually vernacular, so deeply in the American grain, you forget that someone composed it. Inherent Vice feels fizzily spontaneous—like a series of jazz solos, scenes, and conversations built around little riffs of language. Does it add up? Maybe. Do you get lost? Lured down a long linguistic dark alley is more like it. It's always weird but always fun.” —Newsweek
“We should all take a hit off a fat spliff and enjoy the dirty, brainy achievement of Pynchon's "Vice."... It's easy to forget, among all his games and puzzles, that Pynchon can write razor-sharp beauty with the best of them. A page-long description of the Santa Anas demands a place next to classic passages by Chandler and Joan Didion... With Pynchon's brilliance comes readability.” —The Los Angeles Times
"Entertainment of a high order." —Time
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 and Dixon and, most recently, Against the Day. He received the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974.