{
    "id": 534921,
    "slug": "v-thomas-pynchon",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "V.",
    "subtitle": null,
    "collection_title": null,
    "collection_part_number": null,
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "Winner of the coveted William Faulkner Foundation First Novel Award in 1963, V. is an ever popular novel by one of America's great modernists.\n\nV. is a wild, macabre tale of the twentieth century and of two men (one looking for something he has lost; the other never had much to lose so isn't looking for it) - and \u201cV.,\u201d the unknown lady of the title, who may be somebody's mother, somebody's mistress, or the world gone mad with despair.\n\n\"Filled with wild humor, inventive wordplay and a darkly imaginative power. The story roams all over the map and features such characters as Benny Profane, an adventurer named Stencil and a mysterious woman known only as V.\" - Philadelphia Inquirer\n\n\"Benny Profane['s] function in the novel is to perfect the state of 'schlemielhood' - that is to say being the victim... His friends are called the Whole Sick Crew... Set in contrast to Profane is a young adventurer named Stencil... obsessed by a self-imposed duty which he follows, somewhat joylessly - a Quest to discover the identity of V., a woman's initial which occurs in the journals of his father, a British Foreign Office man, drowned in a waterspout off of Malta.\" - New York Times Book Review\n\n\"[V.] leaves the imagination spent and the mind reeling.\" - New York Herald Tribune",
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 496,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": "1963-01-01",
    "publication_date_latest": "1963-01-01",
    "cover_url": null,
    "editions": [],
    "ratings_count": 0,
    "read_count": 0,
    "review_count": 0,
    "favorite_count": 0,
    "reading_status_read_count": 0,
    "reading_status_reading_count": 0,
    "reading_status_want_to_read_count": 0,
    "rating_average": null,
    "ratings_distribution": {
        "1": 0,
        "2": 0,
        "3": 0,
        "4": 0,
        "5": 0
    },
    "created_at": "2025-09-19T14:41:54+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-10-29T00:44:15+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 4169,
        "slug": "harper-collins-uk",
        "name": "Harper Collins UK",
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:08:37+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:12:58+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [
        {
            "id": 324917,
            "slug": "thomas-pynchon-2",
            "key_names": "Pynchon",
            "names_before_key": "Thomas",
            "prefix_to_key": null,
            "contributor_role": "A01",
            "readable_contributor_role": "Author"
        }
    ],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": []
}