Book Review: Shadow Ticket

Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket arrives like a cipher slipped under the door of contemporary America. The milieu of the novel is Milwaukee in the 1930s: prohibition, the Depression, and a tilt to fascism grip the world is in the air. Later the action will move to Europe, specifically Hungary. 

Hicks McTaggart is a former strike-buster who became a private eye in the employ of Unamalgamated Investigations. His boss is Boynt Crosstown. One day, a new case arrives, and Hicks is assigned to it: Locate Daphne Airmont, daughter of Bruno Airmont, Milwaukee's "Al Capone of Cheese," and convince the cheese empire heiress to return. 

The first hundred pages or so take place stateside; Hicks bumps into various people who may appear later in the novel. Pynchon's prose sparkles, jokes and songs abound, and some nods to former novels here and there. The dialogue seems to be spot-on for the era. 

Hicks is shanghaied aboard a steamer ship bound for Europe, uncertain of how he got on board. Hicks meets a British couple on board, who turn out to be MI5 agents. They want Hicks’s help with something; a troubling turn of events in Europe. Hicks agrees, but knows he will remain focused on his first assignment. 

He finds himself, before long, in Budapest and kind of disappears from the story for many chapters.

The “Trans-Trianon 2000,” a 2000km motorcycle circuit through territories of Central Europe is on. The ride is long and, in places, dangerous, intended to converge in Fiume. No need to register, no finish line, no start line—just join when a rider likes and go as far as they prefer. A lot of detail goes into the description of the bikes and their riders. Some Nazi groups wonder if Harley riders are secretly involved in helping Jews escape Germany, as the name of their ride being Harley DAVID-son. Another potentially renegade bike brand is, naturally, the Indian. 

Terike, another 'tomato' whose can-do attitude and looks catch Hicks's eye, happens by on her autogyro in time to save him. former motorcycle courier who has taken to the sky using an "autogyro," a combination of a single-engine fixed-wing plane with helicopter rotors. It flies well at low altitudes and lands safely in the event of an engine stall. Terike adeptly weaves through cloud banks and around tall trees to guide them to safety. 

All while Central Europe is tilting toward fascism and antisemitism. 

Lew Basnight from Pynchon's Against the Day (2006) shows up to move the plot along at some point. 

As with any Pynchon review, I am forced to omit 99% of the subplots, characters, and locations that make up Shadow Ticket. ST is good entry book into Pynchon's works, as it presents a more or less straightforward narrative structure. Bleeding Edge (2013) is like this, too, with Maxine Tarnow, an accountant turned sleuth.