Cover to the European edition I was so blown away by Inherent Vice , that I have to read V. now. This book came out in 1963. It was his first novel, and I think goes well with Gravity's Rainbow. I plan to read both this summer. Wikipedia summarizes the novel thus: It describes the exploits of a discharged U.S. Navy sailor named Benny Profane, his reconnection in New York with a group of pseudo-bohemian artists and hangers-on known as the Whole Sick Crew, and the quest of an aging traveler named Herbert Stencil to identify and locate the mysterious entity he knows only as "V." Pynchon Wiki has a section of supportive notes for the novel. Reading group guide from Publisher. Reddit reading group. New Yorker Mack Hayden 7 known photos of Thomas Pynchon. Pynchon is heady, hard to follow dreamscapes of various existential, historical self journeys alive to culture: military to jazz, opera to debauchery. It’s got a whiff of Ulysses, and a million other books the reader can im...