Penguin Pressures Publisher of Pynchonesque Portfolio

The iridescently mohawked artist/porn star Zak Smith has been getting a lot of attention from the press in recent weeks for his latest project: a book that includes one hand-drawn illustration for every page of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (like the one at left for page 755). That earned a notice in the WaPo Book Notes, a mention in an AP story on Pynchon-obsessed readers, even picture placement in Newsweek’s review of Against the Day. There’s just one problem: Penguin just found out Smith’s book is called Gravity’s Rainbow Illustrated: One Picture for Every Page, and boy are they steamed.

When Publishers Weekly highlighted the book two weeks ago, Tin House Books editorial director Lee Montgomery saw “no conflict over the book’s title,” since you can’t copyright a title, but Penguin saw things differently and threatened a lawsuit. As a result, Tin House is changing the title back to what Smith called his exhibition of the artwork during the 2004 Whitney Biennial, Pictures Showing What Happened on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel Gravity’s Rainbow, and is slapping stickers on as many of the 5,000 paperbacks they still have sitting in a PGW warehouse.

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