Nationality 1: American

Birthdate: 1937

Little is known of Pynchon's personal life because of his deliberate reclusion. He refuses to participate in interviews with the media, and only his closest and most trusted friends know where he lives. In fact, more is known about Pynchon's ancestors than Pynchon himself. His ancestor William Pynchon was a Puritan writer who arrived in America in 1630 but returned to England after a tract he wrote was declared heretical. Pynchon also had a prominent ancestor and namesake who was a reverend and scholar in nineteenth-century New England, and another branch of his family contained prominent stock brokers before the market crash of 1929.

What is known about Pynchon is that he was born in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York on May 8, 1937, son of an industrial surveyor and Republican politician. In 1953, Pynchon entered Cornell University to study in its engineering physics department, but he...