IVIV cover, front matter, back matter

[Doug Millison]

Picking it up to re-read Ch 1, noting how well the dust jacket  
illustration pegs the novel in the detective noir category, and  
thinking the author himself probably specificed the pink and green  
neon typography.  It would be interesting to know if it was his idea  
to make it neon, although that could easily have been the book jacket  
designer's move, given that it's a standard element in mystery book  
cover illustrations.  Somebody mentioned the car looks like a rocket.   
"Dying to Surf" and "R.I.P." suggest and end to the hoped-for "Eternal  
Summer" on this beach.

Following the book jacket, the rich colors of the cover illo fade to  
black then pink, then stark black and white, then gray: the repeated  
gray of the three title page variants - I don't know what else to call  
the page that precedes Also by Thomas Pynchon, or the gray page with  
the novel's title that faces the back of the page with the May '68  
graffito.

These gray pages I hesitate to call a "red flag" but the repetition  
once, twice, a third time, does seem to call attention to itself, as a  
design statement if nothing else.  But I think there may be something,  
too, in this transition from the high-contrast bold colors of the  
cover to this wash of gray where the story begins.

No corresponding gray page(s) at the end of the novel. Just a few  
blanks of this pretty paper, then the black/white, pink, and glowing  
beach sunset colors of the illustration on the back of the dustjacket,  
sun below the horizon, night falling.