Thomas Pynchon Twitter account is a hoax
If publicity-averse Thomas Pynchon decided to come out of seclusion, would he do it on Twitter? With an account named @PynchonOfficial?
No, says his publisher. “It’s a fake,” Penguin Press Vice President Tracy Locke confirmed via email.
The fake Pynchon Twitter account launched Sept. 3. Although it has posted only a handful of tweets, it included the sensational “‘Bleeding Edge’ is my last book. I’m done with fiction. T.P.”
Remember: Fake.
Pynchon is the 76-year-old author of “Gravity’s Rainbow,” which won the National Book Award in 1974. His novels include 1,000-plus page behemoths -- “Against the Day” and “Mason & Dixon” -- as well as the slender “The Crying of Lot 49,” his 1963 debut “V,” 1990’s “Vineland” and 2009’s “Inherent Vice.”
In “Bleeding Edge,” which goes on sale Tuesday, Pynchon takes on the Internet, something he’d presciently hinted at in earlier books. His latest novel is set in Manhattan in 2001, after the first dot-com boom had gone bust.
The book proves many times over that Pynchon knows his way around the Internet -- but that doesn’t mean he’ll be surfacing on Twitter any time soon.
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