Vineland is the story of Zoyd Wheeler, his daughter Prairie, and his old lover Frenesi Gates. The three are caught up in a tumultuous sequence of events involving television addicts, mad government agent Brock Vond, and a militant film collective. The novel tells a frenetic story of reunion and family that trades heavily in symbolism related to the cultural shift toward conservatism during the transition from the 1960s to the 1980s.