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A novella by Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 tells the story of Oedipa Maas and the centuries-old conflict between two mail distribution companies. Summary of the Book Oedipa Maas inherits the responsibility of becoming the co-executor of her former lover’s estate when the man dies. However, she didn’t expect the estate to involve a secretive mail delivery service with its origins centuries in the past. Tristero is a secret, it went underground in 18th century and continues to thrive to the present day. Its mailboxes are disguised as waste bins, boldly displaying its slogan: “We Await Silent Tristero's Empire”. However, Oedipa doesn’t know whether this is a conspiracy or the truth, and as she delves further into the business of this secret organization, she begins to fall into paranoia. Soon, her self-professed hallucinations and feelings of paranoia begin to eat away at her and she finds that she can no longer decide whether the organization is a pigment of her imagination or a real entity with a clandestine agenda. About Thomas Pynchon Thomas Pynchon is an American novelist known for V., Gravity’s Rainbow and Mason & Dixon. This book is considered a notable example of postmodern fiction and an outright spoof of postmodernism.