Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem. Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), "a screaming comes across the sky," heralding an angel of death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, "Gravity's Rainbow", refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. Soon Tyrone is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. "Gravity's Rainbow", however, doesn't follow such a standard plot; one must have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns only just past our comprehension. "Gravity's Rainbow" is a blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes.

托馬斯·品欽（1937－ ），美國後現代主義文學的代錶作傢。他的作品往往以神秘的荒誕文學與當代科學的交叉結閤為特色。他獲得過美國全國圖書奬，但拒絕領奬。其作品包含著豐富的意旨、風格和主題，涉及到曆史、自然科學和數學等不同領域。有評論傢稱其《萬有引力之虹》係藉助神力完成，堪稱一部大百科全書。

他對自己的個人生活諱莫如深，成名後深居簡齣，早年的照片和檔案也離奇消失，使外界對他的私生活同對他的作品一樣充滿好奇和無奈。

他的主要作品有《V》、《拍賣第49批》、《萬有引力之虹》、《葡萄園》等。