Nathan Zuckerman

So there's that.

And then also that, I mean, what I was really thinking about when I decided to be risk-taking was an earlier novel by Rachel Bogost, which is the first of the Nathan Zuckerman novels, where he just decided to introduce this character, you know, that Zuckerman is hitting on because it's Roth.

So there cannot be a young woman who isn't, you know, objectified in some way.

i have a love-hate relationship with him by the way um you know so there's this woman he's hitting on this woman is it he's like oh this woman's so mysterious wow she's so beautiful who is she and then he just decided he sort of decides to make her like a grown-up anne frank who's like actually survived the holocaust and there she is to be hit on by this american writer and so i like i kind of hated that novel and i found it so grotesque so shocking but that to me was the kind of okay if he could do something like that you know why why am I worrying about I don't know holding back in my own writing you know nothing I could do is going to be quite as um that's what I'm getting at and that that kind of I think he he kind of gets from Kafka he's like what is what is a thing that I could do now which would be kind of gross or what is a thing now which is which you know takes an aspect of reality and completely distorts it and

American Pastoral tells a story of an American Jew whose daughter gets mixed up in extremist activity.

The novel is narrated by a man named Nathan Zuckerman, who's Roth's r-recurring literary alter ego.

And Nathan Zuckerman tells a story of his childhood friend, Seymour "The Swede" Levov, a golden boy athlete from Zuckerman and Roth's hometown of Newark, New Jersey.

The Swede seems to have it all.

He's a former high school sports star.