Edited by TR Factor

Foreword by Steven Moore

Introduction by Bruce Anderson

Illustrations by Fred Sternkopf

Publisher: Vers Libre Press, 1996 First Edition, First Printing

This book is a large soft cover in near fine condition with 224 pages, Index and black and white illustrations.

FROM THE COVER == COULD THE PSEUDONYMOUS WANDA TINASKY HAVE BEEN THE RECLUSIVE THOMAS PYNCHON, AUTHOR OF V., THE CRYING OF LOT 49, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, and VINELAND?

Well, if it ain't Pynchon, it's someone who has him down cold: his inimitable literary style, his deep but lightly worn erudition, his countercultural roots, his leftist/populist politics, his brand of wit and humor, his encyclopedic range of reference, his street smarts and raffish charm, his immersion In pop culture and sports, and his hatred of all agents of repression. But it seems mighty coincidental that the Wanda Tinasky letters appeared in Mendocino County newspapers at the exact same time (1983-1988) that Pynchon was researching and writing a novel set in Northern California in 1984. And that the Tinasky letters and Pynchon's Vineland both concern the failure of the counterculture and the ongoing depredations of our capitalist society's "tyrants and proprietors and monopolists" (as Emerson calls them in Vineland). And that Tinasky's and Pynchon's principal response to both the fascist Right and inane. Left is a grim hilarity, the kind of laughter you indulge in to keep from crying, or from taking up a semi-automatic and going postal...

From the Foreword by Steven Moore, Ph.D., Rutgers, Senior Editor of the Review of Contemporary Fiction:

Part three ... Other Voices in Mendocino County is a window into another world that you won't see in the mainstream press.

CONTENTS

Foreword by Steven Moore

Introduction by Bruce Anderson

Preface

THE LETTERS OF WANDA TINASKY

Part one... Wanda's Story

in which facts & dates & inferences are braided into a tale           

Part two... The Letters of Wanda Tinasky

in which Wanda carries forth & on & out

Part three... Other Voices in Mendocino County

in which the reader is invited to explore additional oddities in the Wanda era & some more recently

Part four ... Index

MORE ABOUT == Wanda Tinasky, ostensibly a bag lady living under a bridge in the Mendocino County area of Northern California, was the pseudonymous author of a series of playful, comic, and erudite letters sent to the Mendocino Commentary and the Anderson Valley Advertiser between 1983 and 1988. These letters were later collected and published as The Letters of Wanda Tinasky. In them, Tinasky weighs in on a variety of topics most notably local artists, writers, poets, and politicians with an irreverent wit and literate polish at odds with her apparently straitened circumstances. The harshness of the attacks was deemed excessive by the Commentary early on, and, as a result, most of the remaining letters appeared in the AVA. At the time, the identity of Tinasky was completely unknown, and was subject to much local speculation. Tinasky was thought by many to be novelist Thomas Pynchon until it was demonstrated that Tinasky was likely an obscure Beat Generation poet named Tom Hawkins.

Thomas Pynchon​ == In 1990, Bruce Anderson, the editor of the AVA, read Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, a novel set in northern California. Pynchon's style reminded Anderson of Tinasky, and Pynchon's notorious secrecy fueled speculation that he had been in the area during the 1980s. It occurred to Anderson that perhaps Pynchon was Tinasky. Indeed, Tinasky had written that she was writing a novel based on the local scene in Mendocino County.

Similarities (for example, both Tinasky and Pynchon worked for Boeing) were easy to play up, and discrepancies (for example, Tinasky worked for Boeing ten years before Pynchon) just as easy to play down. This pattern of finding significant matches between Pynchon and Tinasky, while ignoring apparent contradictions, continued in the readings that followed. Anderson ran his speculations past some Pynchon fans, and received enough encouragement to report in the AVA that Pynchon was Tinasky. This announcement attracted little outside interest.

The Letters of Wanda Tinasky​ = In 1994, Fred Gardner started a "Best of AVA" project, came upon the Tinasky letters, and learned from Anderson the latter's belief that Pynchon wrote them. Gardner switched to working exclusively on a Tinasky letters project. Receiving a tip that TR Factor (the former Diane Kearney, who appeared in the AVA as "C. O. Jones") might actually be Tinasky, Gardner contacted Factor, and hired her as his assistant.

In 1995, Gardner sent a letter to Pynchon's agent, Melanie Jackson (by then Pynchon's wife), in regard to the forthcoming publication of the Tinasky letters. Jackson wrote back that Pynchon did not write the letters, and that his name should not be associated with the project. The suggestion was made that Anderson was merely drumming up publicity for himself and the AVA. Gardner did not have as much zeal as Factor after this, and quit the project.

In 1996, Factor self-published The Letters of Wanda Tinasky with an introduction by literary critic Steven Moore guardedly supporting the identification of Pynchon with Tinasky, though, under legal duress, the book fell short of making an overt claim of authorship, and did not put Pynchon's name on the cover. The Pynchon community remained largely undecided, and strong opinions formed on both sides, but the issue was mostly ignored. Pynchon Notes, an academic journal, did not review Tinasky.