SPOILER WARNING!!!!

[Otto]

You're right, Keith, it's an absolute old hat:

21 March 1990: AVA publisher Bruce Anderson prints an announcement in his
paper: "SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED. The justly famous American novelist, Thomas
Pynchon, is almost certainly the pseudonymous comic letter writer, Wanda
Tinasky." Plans to publish the letters in book form slowly take shape.

14 June 1995: Thomas Pynchon's wife and literary agent, Melanie Jackson,
writes to the team preparing the Tinasky letters for publication: "I have
conferred with the author and his editors and publishers, and no one can see
any resemblance between his work and any of these letters [ . . . ] Thomas
Pynchon's name cannot be associated with your project in any way."

May 1996: The Letters of Wanda Tinasky is published, on the premise that
Thomas Pynchon almost certainly wrote the letters. Steven Moore's Foreword
begins, "Well, if it ain't Pynchon, it's someone who has him down cold: his
inimitable literary style, his deep but lightly worn erudition [ . . . ]"
(An "inimitable literary style" would seem to preclude an imitator "who has
him down cold," no?) The scholarly journal Pynchon Notes provides its
readers with instructions for ordering the book from a post office box in
Oregon.

October 1996: The book's editor, TR Factor, sends copies of the Letters,
back issues of the AVA, and lots of Pynchon material to Don Foster, who in
February had identified Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors, asking
him to corroborate Pynchon's authorship. Foster remains unconvinced, and
other duties limit the amount of time he can devote to the investigation.

1997: Thomas Pynchon makes a rare public statement, telephoning CNN to deny
authoring the letters.

September 1998: Don Foster's sleuthing leads him to the woman who purchased
the Hawkins property after the couple's deaths. Untouched by the house fire
is the shed where Hawkins did his writing, containing an Underwood
typewriter and lots of correspondence and news clippings about the life and
work of Thomas Hawkins, including the 1962 letter that Jack Green returned.
She sends the much of the material to Foster, and it confirms his suspicion
that Hawkins, not Pynchon, wrote the bulk of the Tinasky letters. On
September 12, Foster faxes the results of his investigation to Melanie
Jackson, and soon he receives a thank-you note typed and signed by Thomas
Pynchon.

October 2000: Don Foster's Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous is
published by Henry Holt and Company. A chapter is devoted to the Tinasky
letters, containing many more details corroborating Hawkins as author than
time and copyright laws permit me to include here. For an excellent
synopsis, see Alexander Cockburn's review (scroll down to the heading
"Wanda: The Truth").

December 2000: After reading Foster's book, Steven Moore contacts him with a
minor correction: Jack Green's real name, as it was reported to Moore by
William Gaddis. Foster responds that he will make the correction in future
printings of his book (it's already been incorporated into this document).

February 2001: The Tinasky website at America Online
(http://members.aol.com/tinasky/), which contained instructions for ordering
the book, the Foreword, and some ancillary material, ceases to exist.
http://www.nyx.org/~awestrop/gaddis/whoswho.htm


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Keith McMullen" <keithsz at sbcglobal.net>
To: "Pynchon Index Cacorum" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 7:10 PM
Subject: SPOILER WARNING!!!!


> NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH
>
>
> On Nov 16, 2004, at 9:54 AM, jolly wrote:
>
> "It has been suggested that Pynchon and one Wanda Tinasky are the same
> person. Several letters authored under the name Wanda Tinasky in the
> late 1980s were published in the Anderson Valley Advertiser in Anderson
> Valley, California. The style and content of these letters closely
> resemble Pynchon's, and Pynchon's Vineland which was written at that
> time also takes place in Anderson Valley. Pynchon may have been in the
> area, conducting research. A collection of these letters have been
> printed as a paperback book entitled The Letters of Wanda Tinasky;
> however, Pynchon himself denies having written ! the letters"
>