American Pastoral

American Trilogy, Book 1

By: Philip Roth

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Here is Philip Roth’s masterpiece, featuring Nathan Zuckerman and the story of Swede Levov, a legendary athlete at his Newark high school, who grows up in the booming postwar years to marry a former Miss New Jersey, inherit his father’s glove factory, and move into a stone house in the idyllic hamlet of Old Rimrock. And then one day in 1968, Swede’s beautiful American luck deserts him.

For Swede’s adored daughter, Merry, has grown from a loving, quick-witted girl into a sullen, fanatical teenager—a teenager capable of an outlandishly savage act of domestic terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longed-for American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk. Compulsively listenable, propelled by sorrow, rage, and a deep compassion for its characters, American Pastoral gives us Philip Roth at the height of his powers.

©1997 Philip Roth (P)2023 Blackstone Publishing

The epic story by Philip Roth.

Simply amazing! Felt like a radio-play - so well presented by the narrater Malcolm Hillgartner!

Do you like gloves?

Somewhere in this book is an interesting story, but it is buried by layers and layers of repetitive details on glove making.

Roth’s writing

Raw History was it was made. Scary reliving of those days. I lived through them again.

Let me was good. The story itself isn’t bad I guess. But…

I don’t know why the storm is this in such a roundabout almost tedious way

Meandering turns into a gripping tale

It started out weak, but then next thing you know, you’ve been caught in the world that is Swede Luvov