In the August issue of Wired I wrote a guide to Thomas Pynchon's latest novel, Inherent Vice. It was literary criticism in the form of an annotated map of Los Angeles, the new book's setting. The point was that Pynchon has always had a strong connection to L.A., where he lived and wrote for many years. And the new book's surprising secret was that it is openly, explicitly autobiographical in many respects. It comes as close to a memoir as we are ever likely to see from this author. This openness, once you know where to look, shouldn't be that much of a surprise. Pynchon has always been less secretive and reclusive than the media portrays him. He has been, for all intents and purposes, hiding in plain sight for decades, living a normal and extraordinarily productive life in Manhattan, by all acounts. The man just avoids interviews and photographs. To go with the piece, I created an interactive map of Pynchon's L.A. online and invited other Pynchon obsessives to add their own annotations, embedded below. I also added a bunch of extra notes of my own. I think it's still open, so keep at it!
UPDATE: Here are two of the many places that cited the map, including a funny post in the Times.
