The Crying of Lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon)

One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels

"A puzzle, an intrigue, a literary and historical tour de force." - San Francisco Examiner

The Crying of Lot 49 is Thomas Pynchon's highly original classic satire of modern America, about Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in what would appear to be an international conspiracy.

When her ex-lover, wealthy real-estate tycoon Pierce Inverarity, dies and designates her the coexecutor of his estate, California housewife Oedipa Maas is thrust into a paranoid mystery of metaphors, symbols, and the United States Postal Service. Traveling across Southern California, she meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge.

Thomas Pynchon is the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Slow Learner (a collection of short stories), Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge, and Shadow Ticket. He received the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974.