American Pastoral, Philip Roth
American Pastoral, Philip Roth
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American Pastoral

Author: Philip Roth

Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner

Unabridged: 16 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/04/2023

Synopsis

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.

About Philip Roth

Philip Roth was born in Newark, New Jersey on 19 March 1933. The second child of second-generation Americans, Bess and Herman Roth, Roth grew up in the largely Jewish community of Weequahic, a neighbourhood he was to return to time and again in his writing. After graduating from Weequahic High School in 1950, he attended Bucknell University, Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago, where he received a scholarship to complete his M.A. in English Literature.In 1959, Roth published Goodbye, Columbus – a collection of stories, and a novella – for which he received the National Book Award. Ten years later, the publication of his fourth novel, Portnoy’s Complaint, brought Roth both critical and commercial success, firmly securing his reputation as one of America’s finest young writers. Roth was the author of thirty-one books, including those that were to follow the fortunes of Nathan Zuckerman, and a fictional narrator named Philip Roth, through which he explored and gave voice to the complexities of the American experience in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. Roth’s lasting contribution to literature was widely recognised throughout his lifetime, both in the US and abroad. Among other commendations he was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the International Man Booker Prize, twice the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award, and presented with the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medal by Presidents Clinton and Obama, respectively.Philip Roth died on 22 May 2018 at the age of eighty-five having retired from writing six years previously.

About Malcolm Hillgartner

Malcolm Hillgartner has narrated over 175 audiobooks. He was named an AudioFile Best Voice of 2013. His work ranges from children's titles such as On the Blue Comet (AudioFile Best of 2011, Earphones), and Neal Stevenson's sci-fi epic REAMDE (Audible.com Best of 2011) to the biographies Kissinger (AudioFile Best of 2013, Earphones) and Cheever (AudioFile Best of 2009, Earphones). He is also an accomplished actor, writer, and musician. With his wife and partner, Jahnna Beecham, he has written over 130 books for teens and young readers, as well as the musicals Chaps! and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Musical, which have been produced in the U.S. and Canada.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Caleb

I was not a fan.......more

Goodreads review by Michael

It is getting exceedingly rare to find books that are well-written and yet hard-hitting and surprising at nearly every turn. Usually, you get just one (like the nearly unreadable Infinite Jest that I can still not get through) or the other (like The Outfit or, say, Game of Thrones). So, when my movi......more

Goodreads review by William2

Third reading. The book starts off as an homage to a man the narrator, Nathan Zuckerman, looked up to as a child because of his athletic achievements in local sports: Seymour Levov, the "Swede." It also presents itself in the early going as an homage to the so-called "greatest generation." But this......more

Goodreads review by Dave

This is Roth's masterpiece, in case you want to read one or two of his books, now that he is gone. Apparently Philip Roth was a difficult man. He had a reputation, by his own admission, as a cad, a bounder, profligate. "Reputation," which doesn't mean it is true, though it may be. His ex-wife, the a......more

Quotes

“Some of the best pure writing Roth has done.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Roth’s most mature novel, powerful and universally resonant.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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

“Dazzling…A wrenching, compassionate, intelligent novel.” Boston Globe

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