Thomas Pynchon was born in 1937 in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, one of three children of Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Sr. (1907-1995) and Katherine Frances Bennett (1909-1996). His earliest American ancestor, William Pynchon, emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, then became the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts in 1636, and thereafter a long line of Pynchon descendants found wealth and repute on American soil. Aspects of Pynchon's ancestry and family background have partially inspired his fiction writing, particularly in the Slothrop family histories related in the short story "The Secret Integration" (1964) and Gravity's Rainbow (1973).
Pynchon attended Oyster Bay High School in Oyster Bay, where he was awarded "student of the year" and contributed short fictional pieces to his school newspaper. These juvenilia incorporated some of the literary motifs and recurring subject matter he would use throughout his career: oddball names, sophomoric humor, illicit drug use, and paranoia. After graduating from high school in 1953 at the age of 16, Pynchon studied engineering physics at Cornell University, but left at the end of his second year to serve in the U.S. Navy. In 1957, he returned to Cornell to pursue a degree in English. His first published story, "The Small Rain", appeared in the Cornell Writer in March 1959, and narrates an actual experience of a friend who had served in the Army; subsequently, however, episodes and characters throughout Pynchon's fiction draw freely upon his own experiences in the Navy. While at Cornell, Pynchon started his friendships with Richard Farina and David Shetzline; Pynchon would go on to dedicate Gravity's Rainbow to Farina, as well as serve as his best man and as his pallbearer. Together the two briefly led what Pynchon has called a "micro-cult" around Oakley Hall's 1958 novel Warlock. Pynchon later reminisced about his college days in the introduction he wrote in 1983 for Farina's novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, first published in 1966. He reportedly attended lectures given by Vladimir Nabokov, who then taught literature at Cornell. Although Nabokov later said that he had no memory of Pynchon, Nabokov's wife Vera, who graded her husband's class papers, commented that she remembered his distinctive handwriting as a mixture of printed and cursive letters, "half printing, half script." In 1958, Pynchon and classmate Kirkpatrick Sale wrote part or all of a science-fiction musical, Minstrel Island, which portrayed a dystopian future in which IBM rules the world. Pynchon received his BA in June 1959.

Q: Where did he go to school?
A: Pynchon attended Oyster Bay High School in Oyster Bay,

Q: Was he a good student?
A: he was awarded "student of the year"

Q: When did he graduate?
A: in 1953

Q: Did he go to college?
A: Pynchon studied engineering physics at Cornell University,

Q: Did he stay in the navy?
A: In 1957, he returned to Cornell to pursue a degree in English.
What other things was he doing at this time?
His first published story, "The Small Rain", appeared in the Cornell Writer in March 1959, His first published story, "The Small Rain", appeared in the Cornell Writer in March 1959, His first published story, "The Small Rain", appeared in the Cornell Writer in March 1959, His first published story, "The Small Rain", appeared in the Cornell Writer in March 1959, His first published story, "The Small Rain", appeared in the Cornell Writer in March 1959,
His first published story, "The Small Rain", appeared in the Cornell Writer in March 1959,