If you have ever read a paragraph of a Thomas Pynchon novel – the proto-hippie California double-speak, the switchback internal monologue, the future flashback, the West Coast geographic specificity, the every-which-way plot plus the possibility that every word is the shaggiest dog story you’ve ever read (until the next page) – then you might be as surprised as me to discover that Pynchon’s new novel, Shadow Ticket , is set in Depression-era Milwaukee.

I purport not to “get” Pynchon’s novels insomuch as they can be “got,” but I dig them quite deeply for their periscopic polyrhythmics, their inevitable underbelly, the psychedelic noir, the pragmatic paranoia, their belligerent honesty and ultimately, their heart. The famously reclusive writer’s books are rich with characters unglu

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