MPR's The Writer's Almanac  

It's the birthday of Thomas Pynchon, born in Glen Cove, Long Island (1937). His novel Gravity's Rainbow (1973) won the Pulitzer Prize but the editorial board refused to grant him the award. They called it "obscene" and "unreadable," so no one won the Pulitzer for fiction that year. The book won the National Book Award too, but Pynchon refused to go to the awards ceremony to accept it. Gravity's Rainbow begins: "A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now."