Our six-week discussion of Pynchon’s Vineland kicks off with a bang as Brian, Chad, and Kaija are joined by Rodrigo Fresán (author of Melvill, Mantra, The Part Trilogy, and who’s had four books featured on TMR) to breakdown the first five chapters of the book, although most of the time is spent introducing Pynchon’s world, illustrating how relevant this book is today (an ICE raid on an airplane, perhaps?), and what makes him such a fun author to read. Lots of laughs in this book and episode, after which, no one should be too intimidated to read this modern master—Vineland is some doped-up fun!

This week’s music is “T.V. Crazy” by Little Charlie & the Nightcats.

Next week we’ll be reading through page 129 (chapters 6–8) and getting deeper into Pynchon’s vision of the 60s and 80s and the never-ending conflict between the counterculture and The Man.

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