Shadow Ticket
 | This article may incorporate text from a large language model. (September 2025) |
 | |
| Author | Thomas Pynchon |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Postmodern detective |
| Published | October 7, 2025 (Penguin Press) |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 304 |
| ISBN | 978-1-59420-610-8 |
Shadow Ticket is an upcoming novel by the American author Thomas Pynchon. It was announced by Penguin Press in April 2025 and set to be released in October 2025.[1] The novel, which is set in 1932, centers on a Milwaukee private investigator who is set adrift in Hungary while tracking the heiress to a Wisconsin cheese fortune.[2]
The novel is his tenth work and his first in 12 years, since Bleeding Edge in 2013.[3][1]
Plot
[edit]In 1932, Hicks McTaggart—a reformed union buster turned private detective in Great Depression-era Milwaukee—is hired to find Daphne Airmont, a dairy heiress who has disappeared with a clarinetist. McTaggart becomes entangled in Italian Mafia politics, Nazi sympathizers within Chicago's German-American community, and FBI schemes to sabotage Roosevelt and suppress left-wing politics. His search eventually carries him overseas into the fractured territories of Central Europe, where the mysteries deepen and he confronts conspiracies involving a rogue U-boat, secret communities, and occult machinery. In the end, the upheaval in America culminates in a coup, and the novel closes with Hicks’ surrogate son Skeet riding the rails west.[3]
Reception and interpretation
[edit]In a 2025 review written for The New Yorker, Kathryn Schulz noted the novel's prescience during Trump-era "Pynchonesque America". In her mixed review, she noted the lack of a clear message: "At some point, though, meaning that is sufficiently cryptic becomes indistinguishable from no meaning at all".[3]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Alter, Alexandra (April 9, 2025). "Thomas Pynchon to Publish a New Novel This Fall". The New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2025.
- ^ Temple, Emily (April 9, 2025). "Thomas Pynchon is publishing a new novel this fall". Literary Hub. Retrieved September 25, 2025.
- ^ a b c Schulz, Kathryn (September 22, 2025). "Reading the New Pynchon Novel in a Pynchonesque America". The New Yorker. Retrieved September 25, 2025.