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American Pastoral
American Pastoral
Nov 10, 2025 9:34 AM

Author:Philip Roth

American Pastoral

'A tragedy of classical proportions...a magnificent novel' The Times

Discover the Pulitzer-prize winning novel that confirmed Philip Roth as one of the greatest American writers.

'Swede' Levov is living the American dream.

He glides through life cocooned by his devoted family, lucrative business, sporting prowess and good looks. He is the embodiment of thriving, post-war America, land of liberty and hope.

Until one sunny day in 1968, when Swede's daughter, Merry, commits an outlandishly savage act of political terrorism and the Levov family is plunged into mayhem. Extraordinarily nuanced and poignant, American Pastoral is the first in an eloquent trilogy of post-war American novels that still resonates today.

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PRAISE FOR AMERICAN PASTORAL:

'Angry, grieving, witty, acute' Sunday Times

'A profound and personal meditation on the changes in the American psyche over the last fifty years' Financial Times

'A momentous novel' Observer

'Utterly tragic and compelling' Tatler

Reviews

Marvellous... Raging and elegaic

—— Guardian

Full of insight, full of sharp ironic twists, full of wisdom about American idealism, and full of terrific fun... A profound and personal meditation on the changes in the American psyche over the last fifty years

—— Financial Times

A tragedy of classical proportions...a magnificent novel

—— The Times

Wonderful, rich...entirely gripping

—— Sunday Telegraph

A momentous novel

—— Observer

Brilliantly written...angry, grieving, witty, acute...compellingly and convincingly rendered

—— Sunday Times

Utterly tragic and compelling. It's one of the greatest modern American novels

—— Tatler

Philip Roth’s American Pastoral is one of those books you know is going to change you in some profound way shortly after you start reading it and it did for me. I read it last summer and nothing has quite surpassed it for me since. A very painful read.

—— Angea Nagle , Irish Times

[American Pastoral] is gorgeously written with passages of breathtaking beauty filled with wisdom and pathos

—— Sarfraz Manzoor , Week
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