  thomas ruggles pynchon, jr. (; born may 8, 1937) is an american novelist. a macarthur fellow, he is noted for his dense and complex novels. both his fiction and nonfiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, styles and themes, including (but not limited to) the fields of history, science, and mathematics. for his most praised novel, gravity's rainbow, pynchon won the 1974 u.s. national book award for fiction. "national book awards&nbsp;â 1974". national book foundation. retrieved 2012-03-29. (with essays by casey hicks and chad post from the awards 60-year anniversary blog. the mock acceptance speech by irwin corey is not reprinted by nbf.) hailing from long island, pynchon served two years in the united states navy and earned an english degree from cornell university. after publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: v. (1963), the crying of lot 49 (1966), gravity's rainbow (1973), and mason & dixon (1997). pynchon is also known for being very private; very few photographs of him have ever been published, and rumors about his location and identity have circulated since the 1960s. pynchon's most recent novel, bleeding edge, was published september 17, 2013. ==biography== thomas pynchon was born in 1937 in glen cove, long island, new york, one of three children of thomas ruggles pynchon, sr. (1907â1995) and katherine frances bennett (1909â1996). his earliest american ancestor, william pynchon, emigrated to the massachusetts bay colony with the winthrop fleet in 1630, then became the founder of springfield, massachusetts in 1636, and thereafter a long line of pynchon descendants found wealth and repute on american soil. pynchon's family background and aspects of his ancestry have provided source material for his fictions, particularly in the slothrop family histories relate
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