American Pastoral: A Novel

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE

A Los Angeles Times Best Fiction Book of the Last 30 Years

“An incandescent fiction…. American Pastoral scintillates with more Rothian wit, paradox, eloquent tantrums and absurd pratfalls placed at the exit of each irresistible argument that can be counted…. He strikes a vivid blaze.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

The first book in the brilliant American Trilogy of postwar set novels, American Pastoral dissects the American dream during the social upheaval of the 1960s and is widely considered to be one Philip Roth’s masterpieces.

Seymour "Swede" Levov—a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factory—comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok, including his beloved daughter Merry, who commits an outlandish act of political terrorism. Not even the most private, well-intentioned citizen, it seems, gets to sidestep the sweep of history.

With vigorous realism, Roth takes us back to the conflicts and violent transitions of the 1960s. It's a book about wanting to belong—and refusing to belong—to America. It sets the desire for an American pastoral—a respectable life of space, calm, order, optimism, and achievement—against the American Berserk.

“A gripping, emotionally charged novel.”  - People

“Dazzling … a wrenching, compassionate, intelligent novel … gorgeous.”  - Boston Globe

“At once expansive and painstakingly detailed…. The pages of American Pastoral crackle with the electricity and zest of a first-rate mind at work.”  - San Francisco Chronicle

“Never before has Roth written with such clear conviction. Never before has he assembled so many fully formed characters.”  - Time

“An incandescent fiction…. American Pastoral scintillates with more Rothian wit, paradox, eloquent tantrums and absurd pratfalls placed at the exit of each irresistible argument that can be counted…. He strikes a vivid blaze.”  - Los Angeles Book Review

“Roth has beaten pain and rage into a beautiful shape. American Pastoral is elaborately patterned and layered, ingeniously crafted to contain, even as it amplifies, a cathartic, barbaric yawp.”  - New York Observer

"Wrenching, skillfully told…a novel not to be missed.”  - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“One of Roth’s most powerful novels ever … moving, generous and ambitious … a fiercely affecting work of art.”  - New York Times