American Pastoral

" If the Jews are not being oppressed for a little while, they move to a place where oppression takes place."

That is the thought Seymour  - Swede Levov is having while listening to the story of his daughter. His only daughter whom he pampered, tried so hard to protect, and then lost her to 'revolution' and spent a life time wondering, worrying, panicking about her. His daughter who is now living like a nun in the dirtiest part of town, who is unwashed and clinically thin. She is now a Jain.

Merry - his daughter had everything. A rich father, a beauty queen mother, a luxurious home, everything a little girl can wish for. 

Except for stuttering. But her parents try everything to cure her stutter - speech therapist, psychiatrist, and lots and lots of love. She still stutters. 

Then one day, the child grows into a rebellious teenager. She finds fault with everything her parents do. She finds fault with the capitalist country and exploitation of the vulnerable by the rich. Of course, she hates her rich parents. 

Swede still tries to reason with her, never scolding her, never punishing her. But trying to convince her to conform, to not associate with communists, to not stay with her new friends in NewYork.

Those were the times of Vietnam war - the war in which America sent her soldiers to fight in the war. Many liberals were against the war. Don't know how, but Merry becomes part of this group. She spends a lot of time with her friends. Her friends about whom parents know nothing about. She stays over at their places. 

And one fine day, she plants a bomb in a local post office and  disappears,  vanishes into thin air. Her parents are devastated.

Overnight Swede and Dawn become the parents of a murderer. Men from FBI come daily and scan each inch of their house, grill them with thousands of questions. Strangers look at them with anger and contempt. And Dawn becomes clinically depressed. 

The Pulitzer winning book "American Pastoral" by Philip Roth is a sad, depressing book you will certainly love.