Pynchon at the Beach

Thomas Pynchon likes to take his time. Following the publication of Gravity’s Rainbow in 1973, it was 11 years before he put out another book. That’s why Inherent Vice was such a surprise. Published in 2009, just three years after the sprawling Against the Day, this detective story set in the spring of 1970 and featuring a hippie private eye named Larry “Doc” Sportello surprised everyone.