In a powerful, if indirect, way Gravity's Rainbow changed my life. The idea that V2 rockets pockmarked London in a Poisson distribution blew my young mind. How

In a powerful, if indirect, way Gravity's Rainbow changed my life. The idea that V2 rockets pockmarked London in a Poisson distribution blew my young mind. How could randomness be predicted?! It prompted me later to take a number of courses in statistics and probability, which deeply informed my academic career. Also, the sheer myth making of Thomas Pynchon as a literary hermit (rarely photographed or interviewed) proved influential on how I have chosen to live, albeit at a very different level of fame.