Vineland, a zone of blessed anarchy in northern California, is the last refuge of hippiedom, a culture devastated by the sobriety epidemic, Reaganomics, and the Tube. Here, in an Orwellian 1984, Zoyd Wheeler and his daughter Prairie search for Prairie's long-lost mother, a Sixties radical who ran off with a narc.
Vinelandis vintage Pynchon, full of quasi-allegorical characters, elaborate unresolved subplots, corny songs (\"Floozy with an Uzi\"), movie spoofs (Pee-wee Herman in The Robert Musil Story), and illicit sex (including a macho variation on the infamous sportscar scene inV.).
Thomas Pynchon is the author ofV.,The Crying of Lot 49,Gravity's Rainbow,Slow Learner, a collection of short stories,Mason and Dixon,Against the DayandInherent Vice. He received the National Book Award forGravity's Rainbowin 1974.