Wanda Tinasky, and cetera

[Dkipen at aol.com]

Dear Jules and Chrissie,

Don't let John Mascaro get you down. He's just grumpy because he and I don't
have the recently deceased LA Reader in which to vent our splenetic book
reviews anymore. 

I find myself wondering if you've heard at all about the controversy
surrounding letters mailed during the 1980s to the Anderson Valley Advertiser
over the signature of a putative bag lady named Wanda Tinasky. Rumors persist
that Wanda was Tom, doing a kind of literary calisthenics some mornings
before sitting down to the more demanding work of creating Vineland, which
takes place in Northern California right in the middle of the AVA's
circulation area. A book of the letters was published earlier this year, and
some of them are pretty good. My question is, would this kind of pseudonymous
letter to the editor-writing strike you as consistent with the Tom you knew?
Might there be a trove of undiscovered pseudonymous letters to the Manhattan
Beach Reporter somewhere? Did he ever use any pseudonyms that you know of?

And to all Plisters in the LA area: The Malibu Book Discussion Group is
taking up The Crying of Lot 49 this Wednesday at 1 pm on Point Dume at the
Community Center. Let me know if you'd like to come, or just stop by. And
more generally, does anybody have any pointers for justifying the ways of Tom
to a nice bunch of duffers whose ideas of great writing apparently include
Rushdie, but who quite probably think Lacan is where La French go to the
bathroom?

Pynchon for everybody,
David Kipen