Inherent Vice
First edition cover design
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| Author | Thomas Pynchon |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Detective novel |
| Published | 2009 (Penguin Press) |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 369 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 276819214 |
| 813/.54 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3566.Y55 I54 2009 |
Inherent Vice is a novel by American author Thomas Pynchon, originally published in August 2009. A darkly comic detective novel set in 1970s California, the plot follows sleuth Larry "Doc" Sportello whose ex-girlfriend asks him to investigate a scheme involving a prominent land developer. Themes of drug culture and counterculture are prominently featured. Critical reception was largely positive, with reviewers describing Inherent Vice as one of Pynchon's more accessible works. The novel was adapted into a 2014 film of the same name.
The term "inherent vice" refers to a property of or defect in a physical object that causes it to deteriorate due to the fundamental instability of its components. In the legal sense, inherent vice may make an item an unacceptable risk to a carrier or insurer. If the characteristic or defect is not visible, and if the carrier or the insurer has not been warned of it, neither of them may be liable for any claim arising solely out of the inherent vice.
The phrase "inherent vice" appears often in William Gaddis' 1955 novel The Recognitions, a novel that influenced American postmodern literature. In Gaddis' novel, the term refers to defects in a work of art. It also appears in another of Pynchon's novels, Mason & Dixon.
The setting is Los Angeles in 1970; the arrest and trial of the Manson Family is featured throughout the novel as a current event. Larry "Doc" Sportello, private investigator and "pothead", receives a visit from his former girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth, now having an affair with the real-estate mogul Michael Z. "Mickey" Wolfmann. Shasta asks Doc to help foil a plot allegedly hatched by Mickey's wife Sloane and her lover, Riggs Warbling, to have Mickey admitted to a mental health institution. Soon afterwards a black militant named Tariq Khalil asks Doc to find Glen Charlock, one of Mickey's bodyguards—Tariq claims that Glen owes him money after their time spent together in prison.
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