Rumors swirl about a rare Pynchon sighting!

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The literary world is all a-flutter with the announcement of a rare Thomas Pynchon  sighting. This reclusive author, who has been known to inhabit the northern New York regions, has a new novel in the works which is scheduled to be published in September 2013. The book is entitled Bleeding Edge and takes place in New York between the dot com bust of the late 90s and 9/11. His last novel, Inherent Vice, was published in 2009.

Pynchon (along with Don DeLillo) is known for some of the greatest novels of the last half of the 20th century, including V, The Crying Lot of 49, Vineland and, his greatest work, Gravity's Rainbow. He (along with DeLillo) is also known for shunning all publicity and media coverage, in a Salinger-esque way.

There is a connection to Central Illinois, and it's kind of an important one: Pynchon was a mentor and friend to the late David Foster Wallace, who said he was the "patricide" to Pynchon's "patriarch". Last year, with the publication of the Central Illinois native's posthumous novel, The Pale King, which had Peoria as its focal point, there was this great parody piece in Salon*. Here's a taste:
"I don’t normally do this sort of thing—write reviews, grant interviews, give readings, sign books, appear on talk shows, attend cocktail parties, accept awards, grant interviews, blurb covers—participate in the whole literary-industrial complex, the academic/critical circle jerk; I usually stay hunkered in my bunker, my own undisclosed location, typing away at my next telephone directory of a novel—J.D. Salinger makes fun of my social life—but in David’s case I must make an exception."

* EDITOR'S UPDATE: Thanks to Ben who pointed out (below) the Open Salon piece was a PARODY. Our writer, Kevin, was totally fooled. Then again, that's nothing new. He also thought those emails from rich African princes were real too.

He also made an exception for The Simpsons:

About the Author

A Juilliard-trained writer, Kevin Kizer has fought against numerous world-champion writers during his career, besting the reigning middle weight writing champion in an exhibition bout in Helsinki in 1976. He also played a crucial role on the U.S. gold-medal winning writing team during the 1984 Pan-Am games, where he came off the bench in dramatic fashion to write the winning prepositional phrase just as time expired.