A Wilderness of VinesA Wilderness of Vines is a 1966 novel by Hal Bennett about post-slavery life in the South.SynopsisOpening in 1919, the novel traces intertwined families whose internalized caste systems mirror the surrounding Jim Crow order.ReceptionContemporary and later critics have noted the novel’s ambitious, uneven, but provocative satire. A 1971 teaching bibliography summarized its theme as a Black community imitating among themselves the white code of discrimination by color.