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At the 2004 Whitney Biennial, artist Zak Smith wowed the crowd with a wall of drawings showing what happens on every page of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Small press Tin House caught wind of the drawings' popularity and decided to publish them as a book entitled Gravity's Rainbow Illustrated: One Picture for Every Pagewhich was scheduled to be released on December 30th.

But last week Penguin, which publishes Pynchon, got all huffy about the title of Smith's book, which they found "misleading." They threatened little Tin House with a lawsuit if they didn't change the title to the insanely catchy Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow. Since it was too late to reprint, poor Tin House was forced to sticker their jackets with the new title, which will certainly class up the cover of the $69.95 hardcover edition. Moral of the story? We don't really know, but we're hoping that someone at Tin House will see this and send us one of those pricey tomes. We've always wanted to pretend to have read that book.

Zak Smith's Illustrations For Every Page of Gravity's Rainbow [The Modern Word]