>>> Thomas Pynchon--author of Gravity's Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49, Mason & Dixon, and other works--is universally considered one of the greatest post-war novelists. Given that his output is not prodigious, his legions of fans have meticulously tracked down every word he's ever written, displaying the same zeal as Elizabethan scholars hunting for anything that came from Shakespeare's pen. They have located his introductions and cover blurbs for other authors, essays, album liner notes, a letter to the editor, an uncollected short story, and other bits and pieces. [This material is available here]

But one portion of Pynchon's work has almost completely eluded capture. From February 1960 to September 1962, Pynch was employed by Boeing, where he wrote technical articles that were only circulated within the company (and perhaps to some of Boeing's clients, which, in this case, would be the US and Canadian militaries). Both of his positions were in nuclear missile programs--first with the Bomarc Service Information Unit and later with the Minuteman Field Support Unit. The only one of these articles that has ever surfaced is "Togetherness," because it was reprinted in the Air Force magazine Aerospace Safety.

The rest of the articles remain in Boeing's archives and are the intellectual property of that corporation. Hoping to find out more, I emailed Boeing's historian, Michael J. Lombardi. This was his reply on 25 February 2003:

"Here is all we know on Pynchon.

Thomas Pynchon did write articles for a monthly Boeing field service publication that ran during the 50s and 60s. Unfortunately there is no documentation or by-lines, so it is very difficult to determine which articles were written by Pynchon.

Recently we allowed a literary researcher to aquire copies of the publications in an effort to determine which articles are Pynchon's. The researcher was going to write a book - so you might want to keep watch for it."

I wrote back to Lombardi, asking him for the name of the researcher, but he replied that he no longer has that information.

We can only hope that this literary sleuth can identify Pynch's articles and drag this unseen work by a literary master out of the memory hole.

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