The Crying of Lot 49

Thomas Pynchon—along with Salinger, the “great American recluse”—is one of the largest twentieth-century, and now also twenty-first-century, writers in world literature. After the very first publications, he was unanimously recognized as a classic on the level of Nabokov, Joyce, and Borges. “The Crying of Lot 49” is an intellectual novel of mysteries, a metaphysical detective story, and a postmodern mystery.

With virtuoso compactness, Pynchon develops his favorite themes of an all-encompassing conspiracy and social paranoia. One day, the main heroine discovers that she has been appointed the manager of the property of her former lover—a California magnate. And soon, frightening revelations begin to multiply at a geometric rate, while random words and symbols point to an all-powerful secret organization that traces its origins back to medieval Europe…

“Virtuosic prose, a Joyce-like intricate symbolism, and a new-fashioned search for the Holy Grail—this is what ‘The Crying of Lot 49’ is.”

Chicago Tribune

The translation is published in a new edition.