Vineland

Vineland is a 1990 postmodern novel by Thomas Pynchon set in California in 1984, the year of Ronald Reagan's reelection as president. Through a series of flashbacks, its characters, who lived through the 1960s, recall the free and rebellious spirit of that decade and describe the authoritarian repression of the Nixon years and the war on drugs that opposed it. The book portrays the transformations of American society between the 1960s and the 1980s.

The story centers on Zoyd Wheeler, a former hippie who receives a disability pension for mental illness on the condition that he pass an absurd yearly test, and on his teenage daughter Prairie. Their uneasy peace is shattered when Brock Vond, a federal law enforcement and intelligence official, resurfaces and sets out to pursue the family. The present-day conflict is intertwined with the past: Prairie's mother, Frenesi Gates, once belonged to a militant film collective and later became Brock's collaborator, with consequences for the countercultural community of the College of the Surf, which declared itself the People's Republic of Rock and Roll.

The novel received a divided critical reception. Some reviewers regarded it as more accessible and less ambitious than its author's earlier work, while others, such as Salman Rushdie, praised its political vision of the greed decade and its comparatively hopeful tone. Its influence became visible decades later when filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson drew loose inspiration from it for the 2025 film One Battle After Another.