Literary Mystery

I heard recently about a novel that was released to little fanfare back in April. It was titled Cow Country and has "Adrian Jones Pearson" listed as the author. A literary critic writing for Harper's floated his theory about Pearson, and this theory garnered some extra attention for the book, and now the book is causing a buzz in the cranky circles of the literary fiction fans.

Art Winslow, the Harper's writer, theorizes that since Pearson is admittedly a pseudonym, the quotes from "Pearson" were very anti-writing-establishment in substance, and the content was similar stylistically, that "Adrian Jones Pearson" is really Thomas Pynchon.

Pynchon being my favorite author, this caught my attention. Penguin, the publisher of Pynchon's work, contends that they are the publishers of Thomas Pynchon's work and that this book, Cow Country, is not TP's work.

That's what you'd expect from them, right?

Anyway, as the mysteries fly, it sounds like the jury is still out, but many feel like this author is not Pynchon in disguise. It seems like the view is that it is actually another writer in the post-modern tradition, Jacob Appel.

I have it on the way to the house, and will report out on my own thoughts as I read through it.

I sat to write a post a few nights ago. I sat and stared. My brain was awash in numbers and articles and stories and warm-ups and other daily detritus. I stared. So many things I thought I had to say.

Some random stuff may be on the way...