“Bonkers and brilliant fun . . . rollicking, genially silly and ultimately sweet . . . Of all living novelists, Pynchon may have the most distinct voice — a clipped tough guy patois delivered with the rhythms of borscht belt comedy, amplified by an endless appetite for linguistic play — that has proved largely inimitable. It’s not just that no one else writes quite like Pynchon; it’s that no one even tries. The endless accumulation of incident pulls you along, but sometimes you have to stop to marvel at any given sentence, much as you might at a 170-foot-tall bottle of ketchup that suddenly looms above you during a road trip.” —The Washington Post
“Late Pynchon at his finest. Dark as a vampire’s pocket, light-fingered as a jewel thief, Shadow Ticket capers across the page with breezy, baggy-pants assurance — and then pauses on its way down the fire escape just long enough to crack your heart open. Only now can we finally see that Pynchon has been quietly assembling — one novel at a time, in no particular order — an almost decade-by-decade chronicle no less ambitious than Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine, August Wilson’s Century Cycle or the 55 years of Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury. This is his Pynchoniad, a zigzagging epic of America and the world through our bloodiest, most shameful hundred years. Perhaps suffering from what Pynchon called in V. our ‘great temporal homesickness for the decade we were born in,’ he has now filled in the only remaining blank spot on his 20th century map: the 1930s.” —Los Angeles Times
“A masterpiece . . . Between the novel’s sheer weirdness, its obscurity, its evocative 1930s setting and its joyously Raymond Chandler-esque dialogue – pinging back and forth between hard-boiled men and harp-tongued broads, I enjoyed Shadow Ticket more than any other Pynchon . . . The fact that Shadow Ticket is brilliant and prescient isn’t a surprise; that it exudes so much joy and sensuousness is. To have had the career Pynchon had, and still be so invigorated by your work, is all any novelist can ask. I hope this isn’t his last hurrah – but if it is, what a way to go out.” —The Telegraph (5/5 stars)
“A literary triumph . . . A gloriously language-driven detective novel that waits for no one.” —The Boston Globe
“A swaggering, hard-boiled caper . . . [Pynchon's] writing simultaneously promises esoteric insight into how the world really works — that it’s governed by unseen forces and powerful players moved by dark motives that lurk in the languages and devices of science, technology, finance and politics — and relentlessly satirises any effort to make sense of how the world really works . . . This is Pynchon’s genius: what seems ridiculous at first glance might just also be a faithful rendering of earnest American culture." —Financial Times
“Wised-up bewilderment is the quintessential temperament of Mr. Pynchon’s P.I.s—the people paid to follow leads learn to accept that they have no idea where they’re going—so a lot of the book relies on the freshness of the comic embellishments. I liked them . . . Why, in what may be his final novel, has Mr. Pynchon chosen this time period, ‘the last minutes of a break’ before historical darkness descends? On a few occasions the author tips his hand, implying connections between interwar Europe and the America of today . . . Readers will have to decide whether this is reflexive Pynchonian paranoia—the endless search for meaningful patterns—or an earnest warning from an author who has seen the world catch up to his wildest imagination.” —Wall Street Journal
"With his casually playful and chillingly resonant ninth novel, Pynchon delivers a warning against global fascism, a slapstick symphony whose antic comedy can’t begin to conceal its hopelessly broken American heart . . . Belying his reputation as an intimidating genius of weighty ideas and unresolved plots, Pynchon is simply telling it like it is: life is crushing, and nothing’s ever over. The novel’s heart-freezing finish is as plaintively moving as anything he’s ever done. Irresistible and deeply satisfying, this makes clear Pynchon’s powers remain undiminished." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
