The story of Charles Mason (1728-1786) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733-1779)—the British surveyors best remembered for running the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland that has come to be known as the Mason-Dixon Line—as re-imagined by bestselling author Thomas Pynchon.
Intermingled with Mason and Dixon's biographies, history, fantasy, legend, speculation, and outright fabrication, the novel is based on the focal point of one Rev. Wicks Cherrycoke, a clergyman of dubious orthodoxy, who attempts to entertain and divert his extended family on a cold December evening—partly for amusement, and partly to keep his coveted status as a guest in the house.
