Zoyd performs his annual window-jump stunt on camera for television news crews.

Hector Zuniga warns Zoyd that his ex-wife Frenesi is missing and Brock Vond is trying to find her.

Brock Vond's agents seize Zoyd's house by planting marijuana evidence, leaving Zoyd and Prairie suddenly homeless.

Prairie is given Takeshi's business card by Zoyd before she leaves with Isaiah's band for the Wayvone wedding.

Prairie meets DL at the Wayvone wedding and learns that Vond wants to use her as leverage to find Frenesi.

Prairie travels with DL to the Sisterhood of Kunoichi Attentives retreat to begin learning about her mother's past.

Prairie studies 24fps film archive footage and watches her mother flirting with Brock Vond on screen.

Frenesi secretly passes footage and information about student protesters to Brock Vond, beginning their covert relationship.

Frenesi delivers a gun to Rex on Vond's instruction, and Rex shoots Weed Atman, destroying the People's Republic of Rock and Roll.

DL infiltrates Vond's reeducation camp and rescues Frenesi, hiding with her in a Mexican fishing village.

Hector brings planted marijuana to Zoyd's house and federal agents arrest Zoyd while Sasha watches Prairie.

Vond visits Zoyd in jail and persuades him to sign documents granting sole custody of Prairie to Zoyd.

Hector tracks Frenesi down to a Las Vegas casino and warns her that Vond is now targeting Prairie.

Prairie and Frenesi reunite for the first time at the Traverse-Becker family reunion.

Vond crashes a stolen helicopter and is escorted underground to his death by V&T towing drivers.

Vineland follows Zoyd Wheeler, a former hippie in 1984, who performs his annual window-jump stunt to maintain his government disability check and his secret deal with federal agent Brock Vond. When Zoyd learns from another agent, Hector, that his ex-wife Frenesi is missing and Vond is hunting her, the fragile peace of his life begins to unravel. His daughter Prairie connects with Frenesi's former ally DL, who guides her through archive footage revealing that Frenesi secretly betrayed the radical student movement called the People's Republic of Rock and Roll to Vond years earlier. Through Frenesi's manipulation, Weed Atman was killed and the movement destroyed, after which DL rescued Frenesi from Vond's reeducation camp. In the present day, Vond engineers Zoyd's arrest and forces him into a custody agreement, while Hector separately warns Frenesi that Vond now plans to use Prairie as leverage. The novel ends with a family reunion that brings Prairie and Frenesi together at last, and Vond's attempt to seize Prairie ends in his death in a helicopter crash.

The core story of Zoyd, Prairie, and the shadow of Brock Vond.

Zoyd arrives at the wrong bar, Log Jam, and must be redirected to the Cucumber Lounge for his stunt.

Isaiah Two Four pitches a violence-themed amusement park to Zoyd and asks him to co-sign a bank loan.

NEVER agents storm a restaurant and chase Hector through the kitchen in front of a stunned Zoyd.

Zoyd's crawdad-farming contacts tell him a television-obsessed man has been asking about him all across town.

Frenesi discovers she cannot cash her government stipend check at multiple stores because her payments have been cut off.

Prairie impresses Sister Rochelle with her cream of mushroom soup and becomes the cook at the Kunoichi retreat.

DL learns forbidden ninjitsu techniques from instructor Inoshiro in Japan, including methods capable of inducing death.

DL is kidnapped outside a Pizza Hut, trafficked to Japan, and purchased at auction by Ralph Wayvone Sr.

Takeshi investigates the mysterious destruction of the Chipco research complex, apparently caused by a giant reptilian creature.

DL accidentally uses the Death Touch on Takeshi instead of Brock Vond during the Tokyo sex club ambush.

Sister Rochelle assigns DL to care for the injured Takeshi for a year as penance for attacking him.

Takeshi and DL establish the Karmology Clinic in the Woodbine Motel to offer karmic balancing services to Thanatoids.

Zoyd and Prairie stop overnight in San Francisco with musician Mucho Mass on their way to Vineland.

Weed Atman's ghost appears to Prairie at the Zero Inn and complains about his unresolved karmic debt.

Prairie wakes in a forest clearing the morning after the reunion to find Desmond the dog licking her face.

These events capture the texture and supporting cast surrounding Vineland's main story, from the mundane details of Zoyd's daily life to the elaborate histories of DL and Takeshi. Zoyd's world is filled with small humiliations and odd jobs, from getting his stunt location wrong to hearing from crawdad farmers that a federal agent has been canvassing the town about him. DL's remarkable backstory — her training in Japan's forbidden ninjitsu, her kidnapping and enslavement, and her botched assassination of Vond — establishes her as both fearsome and ultimately driven by guilt. Takeshi's parallel investigation into a surreal insurance case involving a Godzilla-like creature gradually brings him into DL's orbit, setting the stage for their partnership and the Karmology Clinic they build among the Thanatoids. As the story converges on Vineland, Prairie's journey through grief and discovery reaches a quiet resolution, ending with her waking in the forest with Desmond the dog — a moment of simple, hard-won belonging.

The supporting world of hippies, ninjas, Thanatoids, and personal journeys.

Zoyd leaps through the window during his stunt only to realize Hector had replaced the real glass with candy.

Zoyd travels to Hawaii to win Frenesi back, but she refuses to return and leaves him alone in his hotel.

Zoyd hides Takeshi, disguised as a hippie, from armed troops during a strange UFO incident on a Kahuna Airlines flight.

Prairie searches through Frenesi's secret file at the Kunoichi retreat overnight and discovers her mother's true hidden history.

DL rescues Frenesi from a violent protest incident, and the two women begin a romantic relationship.

Weed Atman inadvertently becomes leader of student activists at College of the Surf after helping peers escape a police raid.

Frenesi starts a secret romantic relationship with Weed Atman in order to spy on him more closely for Vond.

Frenesi spreads a rumor that Weed is an FBI informant, turning the entire student movement violently against its own leader.

Vond lies to the press after the campus collapse, claiming the dead students simply went underground.

Frenesi confesses her betrayal of the radical movement to DL while hiding in Mexico, ending their relationship permanently.

Frenesi's postpartum depression begins to lift and she bonds with Prairie, but Vond pulls her back into his orbit.

Zoyd signs a custody agreement with Vond in jail, committing to perform annual public stunts in exchange for keeping Prairie.

Sasha urges Zoyd to move to Vineland, describing the exodus of former hippies from Los Angeles as a mass migration.

Roy Ibble reveals to Frenesi and Flash that Vond's operations may be connected to a secret Reagan program called REX 84.

Brock Vond dangles from a helicopter above a forest clearing and tells Prairie he is her real father, but she rejects him.

This pool traces the pivotal moments of choice and discovery that set the entire story in motion and determine its outcome. From Zoyd's first clue that Hector has been manipulating his annual stunt, to the chance meeting on an airplane that will eventually bring DL to Prairie's door years later, small decisions ripple outward with enormous consequences. The backstory of the People's Republic of Rock and Roll unfolds as a tragedy of manipulation: Frenesi seduces Weed to spy on him, spreads rumors that destroy his credibility, and ultimately puts a gun in Rex's hand, while Vond covers the aftermath with calculated lies. The personal cost of these betrayals emerges through Frenesi's postpartum depression, her inability to escape Vond's pull, and the eventual confession that ends her relationship with DL. The novel's present-day threads resolve through a chain of institutional failures — Zoyd's coerced custody deal, the revelation of the secret REX 84 program, and finally Reagan's budget cuts — that strip Vond of his power just as he reaches for Prairie, who now knows exactly who her real father is.