Vineland Summary
Thomas Pynchon

Vineland Summary

Vineland tells the story of the people surrounding Frenesi Gates, a one-time sixties radical who turns government informer and goes into hiding, abandoning her husband and young daughter. Pynchon moves fluidly in his narrative from character to character and between the time settings of 1970 and 1984, describing a loosely-knit group of people whose lives are greatly affected as Frenesi passes through them.

The novel opens in the fictional Northern California town of Vineland, where Zoyd Wheeler, Frenesi's ex-husband, lives in semi-seclusion with Prairie, his 14-year-old daughter who has no memory of Frenesi, her mother. Zoyd learns that Prairie is being targeted by Brock Vond, the charismatic federal prosecutor in love with Frenesi who first convinced her to betray her friends in 1970 and is now seeking revenge on her for leaving him. Zoyd sends Prairie away to escape Vond who is preparing a full-scale military invasion of Vineland.

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