Thomas Pynchon’s novel “The Crying of Lot 49” is one of the key works of American postmodernism. The plot centers on Oedipa Maas, who unexpectedly becomes the executor of the will of her former lover, a wealthy entrepreneur. While investigating his estate, she encounters the mysterious underground postal system, Tristero, which leads her on a paranoid journey through an alternative America, full of conspiracies, symbols, and strange coincidences.