Episode Overview

Episode Title: Multiplications of Effect: Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket feat. Devin Thomas O’Shea
Podcast: QAA Podcast
Hosts: Travis View, Julian Feeld (briefly acknowledged), Jake Rockatansky, with guest Devin Thomas O’Shea
Date: February 1, 2026

Theme:
This episode takes a cerebral, literary dive into Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel, Shadow Ticket, with guest Devin Thomas O'Shea. The hosts contextualize the book’s setting in 1932 Milwaukee amid the rise of American fascism, Pynchon’s recurring thematic preoccupations, and his unique approach to history. The episode also briefly discusses Paul Thomas Anderson’s fictional film adaptation of Pynchon’s work, One Battle After Another, and draws broader connections between Pynchon’s oeuvre and contemporary anxieties about politics, secret societies, and the cyclical (or non-cyclical) nature of history.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction and Tone Setting

• The episode opens with a wry, welcoming tone, referencing "getting cerebral" in reaction to modern anxieties.
• Devin Thomas O’Shea promises listeners an accessible breakdown of the intimidating structure and themes of Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket.
  • “Getting into Pynchon is a hard thing. So we're going to do a little rundown of the important stuff, maybe.” — Devin [01:15]

Pynchon’s Setting: 1932 Milwaukee

• Shadow Ticket is set during the Great Depression in Milwaukee, where economic crisis and the proliferation of dangerous, unregulated consumer goods coincide with complex political upheaval.
• The book’s protagonist, Hicks McTaggart, is characterized as a “permanent renter” — emblematic of economic precarity — living creatively amid adversity.
  • “It’s Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1932. You and your best gal are doing the Lindy Hop in a speakeasy just a stone's throw from the misty, icy waters of Lake Michigan. It's colder than the North Pole out there, and just like Shadow Ticket's protagonist, Hicks McTaggart, you're broke. Beyond broke.” — Devin [01:32]
• The era’s culture is invoked with references to jazz, radium-infused glamour, and the American Nazi connections of Charles Lindbergh.
  • “You rake your hair back after dipping it in some radium jelly. The bowling ball crown of your head now glows in the dark, just like the dial on your radium watch..." — Devin [01:47]

American Fascism & Secret Societies

• The discussion notes real historical intersections between American secret societies, Nazi sympathizers, and labor/progressive resistance, particularly in locations like West Allis next to Milwaukee.
  • “Antifa back then was mostly Jewish Americans and trade unionists and progressives who did the bruiser work of making Nazism feel threatened and despised...” — Devin [05:51]
• Pynchon’s narrative takes these historical ingredients and, true to form, populates his world with uncanny, grotesque caricatures of both power and resistance.
• This mirrors the style of Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation (One Battle After Another), specifically praised for its portrayal of a secret white supremacist society, the “Christmas Adventures,” blending menace and absurdity.
  • “What I really liked most is their portrayal of the white supremacist secret society. The Christmas adventures... really captures how both self-serious and ludicrously absurd those kinds of organizations are.” — Travis [03:39]

Transitionary Periods and Pynchon's Historical Approach

• Pynchon is characterized as a writer obsessed with liminal historical moments, using transitionary periods (like 1932 or the end of the ‘60s) to foreground his stories.
  • “Pynchon is always very careful to choose what he thinks is the liminal edge between eras for his novels.” — Devin [04:09]
• Prior protagonists, such as Doc Sportello (Inherent Vice) and Zoid Wheeler (Vineland), are described as being witness to the end of their respective eras (“the last of a dying breed”).
• Shadow Ticket is situated in that uncanny moment when "all of the ingredients of the conflict are present, but they haven't quite been blended together into the right configuration." — Devin [05:13]
• The year 1932, according to the panel, is a moment of decision with the U.S. on the precipice of WWII and the rise of Nazism both in Europe and America.

Unique Aspects of Shadow Ticket

• Unlike previous Pynchon works, this novel’s lead, Hicks McTaggart, is notable for how he navigates America’s crossroads in 1932, and for anchoring the “class war” theme more explicitly.
  • “For me, what's most interesting in Shadow Ticket is the protagonist that Pynchon chooses to navigate this year and how unique Hicks McTaggart is in the wider Pynchon verse.” — Devin [07:32]

Pynchon's Personal & Literary Relationship to the 1930s

• Pynchon’s own “spiritual” affinity for the 1930s is traced through passages from his debut novel, V, contrasting the postwar economic boom with residual Depression-era melancholy.
  • “We suffer from great temporal homesickness for the decade we are born in, because he felt now as if he were living in some private Depression days.” — Pynchon, read by Travis [08:22]
• The resonance of the ‘30s persists in Shadow Ticket, where issues of class, power, and resistance are foregrounded amid the era’s social turmoil.
  • “...in Shadow Ticket, the class war part is loud and clear.” — Devin [08:59]

Pynchon’s View of History

• Contradicting cliches, Pynchon’s novels deny the idea of simple historical cycles:
  • “His conception of history fundamentally rejects the idea that history repeats itself. It never repeats. Every era is totally and genuinely unique, situated in a specific geopolitical configuration, in a very specific technological moment, with a totally unique and never before experienced cultural thing going on.” — Devin [07:12]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Getting into Pynchon is a hard thing. So we're going to do a little rundown of the important stuff, maybe.”
  — Devin Thomas O’Shea [01:15]

• “What I really liked most is their portrayal of the white supremacist secret society... really captures how both self-serious and ludicrously absurd those kinds of organizations are.”
  — Travis View [03:39]

• “Pynchon is always very careful to choose what he thinks is the liminal edge between eras for his novels. He's always looking for transitionary periods between the old and the new world.”
  — Devin Thomas O’Shea [04:09]

• “His conception of history fundamentally rejects the idea that history repeats itself. It never repeats. Every era is totally and genuinely unique...”
  — Devin Thomas O’Shea [07:12]

• “...the class war part is loud and clear.”
  — Devin Thomas O’Shea [08:59]

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|-------------------------------------------------------| | 01:03 | Literary turn: Introducing Pynchon and his new novel | | 01:32 | Setting up Shadow Ticket's world and protagonist | | 03:27 | Discussion of PTA’s adaptation and white supremacist societies in fiction | | 04:09 | Pynchon’s focus on historical transition points | | 05:51 | Real history of American fascism and resistance in the early 1930s | | 07:12 | Pynchon’s philosophy of history’s uniqueness | | 08:22 | Pynchon’s personal connection with the 1930s (quoting V) | | 08:59 | Explicit mention of class war theme in Shadow Ticket |

Summary Takeaway

This episode offers a thoughtful, often wry tour through the landscape of Pynchon’s imagined 1932, connecting his newest work, Shadow Ticket, to both his larger literary project and the modern moment. The hosts and guest balance contextual literary analysis, cultural history, and their signature comedic voice, making the episode essential for fans of Pynchon, American history, or anyone curious about how fiction dwells on the precarity of pivotal eras.