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Read The First Page Of Thomas Pynchon's New "Historical Romance" Of NYC Pre-9/11
By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 13, 2013
Modified Apr 13, 2013
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 13, 2013
Modified Apr 13, 2013
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A new Thomas Pynchon book is as rare, wondrous, and worthy of celebration as a new My Bloody Valentine album—so it goes without saying that we are literally counting down the days until Pynchon's new novel, Bleeding Edge, is released on September 17th. The description of the novel is enough to make our mouths water: it's a "historical romance on New York in the early days of the internet." And if you click below the jump, you can read the first page of the book now!
Yes, you read that right: Pynchon tackles the ongoing scourge of children on scooters in NYC—he's just like us! Maybe the reclusive author...reads Gothamist? Maybe he's one of our beloved trolls! Hey Thomas Pynchon, how do you feel about bike lanes?
At the bottom of this page, you can read the full publisher's house description of the highly anticipated 512-page novel, which is all about the dot-com boom in the days before September 11th: "With occasional excursions into the Deep Web and out to Long Island, Thomas Pynchon, channeling his inner Jewish mother, brings us a historical romance of New York in the early days of the internet, not that distant in calendar time but galactically remote from where we've journeyed to since."
Knowing Pynchon, there'll probably be lots of dense psychedelic prose, lamentations about the '60s counterculture, shady fascistic organizations with futuristic names, and maybe an appearance by The Daily Show (Pynchon is a fan, after all). If you're looking for more Pynchon-related material to munch on, the New Yorker recently looked back at his classic V; Paul Thomas Anderson will soon start shooting his adaptation of the underrated and highly enjoyable Inherent Vice, with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role; and Pynchon In Public Day is coming up on May 8th.
Here's the full description of the new novel:
It is 2001 in New York City, in the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of September 11th. Silicon Alley is a ghost town, Web 1.0 is having adolescent angst, Google has yet to IPO, Microsoft is still considered the Evil Empire. There may not be quite as much money around as there was at the height of the tech bubble, but there’s no shortage of swindlers looking to grab a piece of what’s left.
Maxine Tarnow is running a nice little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side, chasing down different kinds of small-scale con artists. She used to be legally certified but her license got pulled a while back, which has actually turned out to be a blessing because now she can follow her own code of ethics—carry a Beretta, do business with sleazebags, hack into people’s bank accounts—without having too much guilt about any of it. Otherwise, just your average working mom—two boys in elementary school, an off-and-on situation with her sort of semi-exhusband Horst, life as normal as it ever gets in the neighborhood—till Maxine starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm and its billionaire geek CEO, whereupon things begin rapidly to jam onto the subway and head downtown. She soon finds herself mixed up with a drug runner in an art deco motorboat, a professional nose obsessed with Hitler’s aftershave, a neoliberal enforcer with footwear issues, plus elements of the Russian mob and various bloggers, hackers, code monkeys, and entrepreneurs, some of whom begin to show up mysteriously dead. Foul play, of course.
With occasional excursions into the Deep Web and out to Long Island, Thomas Pynchon,
channeling his inner Jewish mother, brings us a historical romance of New York in the early days of the internet, not that distant in calendar time but galactically remote from where we’ve journeyed to since.Will perpetrators be revealed, forget about brought to justice? Will Maxine have to take the handgun out of her purse? Will she and Horst get back together? Will Jerry Seinfeld make an unscheduled guest appearance? Will accounts secular and karmic be brought into balance?
Hey. Who wants to know?
Tagged
2001
dot com boom
great american authors
historical romance
novel
thomas pynchon
wow
writers
original
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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