Earlier this year, novelist Thomas Pynchon hand-picked an image by artist Darshan Zenith for the cover of his new novel. For die-hard fans, the picture gives a glimpse into the reclusive writer's mind.

As GalleyCat reported last month, the new Pynchon novel is entitled Inherent Vice--a private detective yarn set in the 1960s.
The Stranger pointed towards the entropic roots of that title.

The painting is full of allusions to classic works of surf art, a set of references that must have pleased Pynchon. ThomasPynchon.com un-covered the scoop:

"The 1959 Cadillac Hearse is parked in front of the "Endless Summer Surf Shop" (namechecking the Beach Boys Greatest Hits collection and Bruce Brown's 1966 surfing documentary!) ... He paints only the background of the image (the sky, sea, palm trees &c.) and scans the painting into his computer. He then uses 1:18-scale metal diecast models of the cars, photographed against a white background, and loads the digital photo into the computer ... the final work is a digital creation, and there is no original painting of the work."