Pynchon is from Long Island, New York, and served two years in the United States Navy. He also got a degree in English from Cornell University. He published many short stories in the late-1950s and early-1960s. After this, he started writing novels. He is most famous for the novels "V." (1963), "The Crying of Lot 49" (1966), and "Gravity's Rainbow" (1973) from this time. 