Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket Updates

Well, it appears the cover art for Shadow Ticket is taking shape (at left). Amazon.com has updated its listing for Thomas Pynchon’s ninth (and hopefully not his last) novel to reflect what may be (but I hope isn’t the case!) the cover art for Shadow Ticket, as has Penguin Random House on its Shadow Ticket page.

If indeed this is the cover, I have to admit it seems a bit lazy — sort of a mash-up of Bleeding Edge (but not as bold) and Inherent Vice (but not as colorful and intriguing) — with bland typography and poorly matched colors. Hopefully, this cover art is just a somewhat upgraded placeholder for the one Amazon used when it first added the novel to its store.

Interestingly, the page count has been reduced from 384 to 304. Hmm…

Publication is still slated for October 7, 2025, and it’s rumored that advance review copies will be sent out around the end of July.

You can now pre-order Shadow Ticket from Amazon, for $27.

A Note on the Black & White Cover Photo

At left is another photo of Művész Színház in downtown Budapest, from an angle similar to the Shadow Ticket cover art. The theater was founded in 1932 by Artúr Bárdos (1882-1974), a Hungarian theater director, radio and film director, aesthete, university tutor, theater writer, poet, playwright, publicist, and founding editor of the journal Színjáték. The venture ended in complete bankruptcy. (From Wikipedia, Hungarian version)

The Pynchon-penned blurb remains unchanged:

Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation business shifting from labor-management relations to the more domestic kind. Hicks McTaggart, a onetime strikebreaker turned private eye, thinks he’s found job security until he gets sent out on what should be a routine case, locating and bringing back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune who’s taken a mind to go wandering. Before he knows it, he’s been shanghaied onto a transoceanic liner, ending up eventually in Hungary where there’s no shoreline, a language from some other planet, and enough pastry to see any cop well into retirement—and of course no sign of the runaway heiress he’s supposed to be chasing. By the time Hicks catches up with her he will find himself also entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, practitioners of the paranormal, outlaw motorcyclists, and the troubles that come with each of them, none of which Hicks is qualified, forget about being paid, to deal with. Surrounded by history he has no grasp on and can’t see his way around in or out of, the only bright side for Hicks is it’s the dawn of the Big Band Era and as it happens he’s a pretty good dancer. Whether this will be enough to allow him somehow to Lindy-hop his way back again to Milwaukee and the normal world, which may no longer exist, is another question.

Shadow Ticket will be published in the U.K. by Jonathan Cape

Shadow Ticket will be published simultaneously in the U.K. by Jonathan Cape, a Penguin Random House imprint, on October 7, 2025. According to Blackwell’s website, the U.K. edition will be 432 pages.

As you can see at right, the typography for the U.K. edition is different, at least at this point.

And Finally… A Spotify Playlist!

Several months ago, Spotify user Kauê Nunes published a Shadow Ticket playlist on Spotify! I’ve reached out to him to see what’s up, so we’ll see… The “cover” image is very cool!