Thomas Pynchon published stories.
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon , Jr. ( [ ˈpɪnˌtʃɒn ] , commonly [ ˈpɪntʃən ] born May 8 , 1937 ) is an American novelist . For Gravity 's Rainbow , Pynchon won the 1974 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction . After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s , he began composing the novels for which he is best known : V. ( 1963 ) , The Crying of Lot 49 ( 1966 ) , Gravity 's Rainbow ( 1973 ) , and Mason & Dixon ( 1997 ) . Pynchon 's most recent novel , Bleeding Edge , was published on September 17 , 2013 .