American Pastoral. by Roth, Philip - 1997

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. First edition of the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Octavo, original half cloth. Signed by Philip Roth on the title page. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Milton Glaser. Philip Roth's 22nd book takes a life-long view of the American experience in this thoughtful investigation of the century's most divisive and explosive of decades, the '60s. Returning again to the voice of his literary alter ego Nathan Zuckerman, Roth is at the top of his form. His prose is carefully controlled yet always fresh and intellectually subtle as he reconstructs the halcyon days, circa World War II, of Seymour "the Swede" Levov, a high school sports hero and all-around Great Guy who wants nothing more than to live in tranquility. But as the Swede grows older and America crazier, history sweeps his family inexorably into its grip: His own daughter, Merry, commits an unpardonable act of "protest" against the Vietnam war that ultimately severs the Swede from any hope of happiness, family, or spiritual coherence. It was included in Time's All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels. "One of Roth's most powerful novels ever...moving, generous and ambitious...a fiercely affecting work of art" (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). It was the basis for the 2016 film directed by Ewan McGregor and written by John Romano, starring McGregor, Jennifer Connelly and Dakota Fanning.