Fiction. Literature. American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fallâ??of a strong, confident master of social equilibrium overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. Seymour "Swede" Levovâ??a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factoryâ??comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. 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. This is a book about lovingâ??and hatingâ??America. It's a book about wanting to belongâ??and refusing to belongâ??to America. It sets the desire for an American pastoralâ??a respectable life of space, calm, order, optimism, and achievementâ??against the i