Against the Day » (Reprint)

A huge modern influence, Thomas Pynchon's reputation as a contemporary literary giant is only enhanced by his adamant reclusivity (the photo shown here is one of the few of him ever to be published). His prose is so intimidatingly dense, his novels so thematically grand, that he presents a rewarding challenge to his readers and his would-be protegees.

With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.

The New York Times - Liesl Schillinger

With Against the Day, Pynchon proves himself the heir to [H.G. Wells and Joseph Conrad], and a matchless fantasist of the real. The only prescription for salvation he offers is the same one a sheriff s wife gives to the dynamiter s troubled daughter midway through the novel: flight from reality. Let go, the sheriff s wife explains. Let it bear you up and carry you, and everything s so clear because you re not fighting back anymore, the clouds of anger are out of your face, you see further and clearer than you ever thought you could.