American Pastoral is a Philip Roth novel about concerns Seymour "Swede" Levov, an all around good guy, whose life is ruined by the basic American berzerk.

Levov is born and raised in Newark, New Jersey the son of a prosperous glove manufacturer. Called "the Swede" because of his blond hair, he is a football star, and the hero to the book's narrator, Nathan Zuckerman. "The Swede" eventually takes over his father's glove factory -"Newark Maid" and marries a non-Jewish Miss New Jersey.

Levov establishes a perfect life for himself, with a perfect wife, perfect home in the country, and perfect career. However, his daughter steadily and violently rebels against the perfect setting she has inherited, and Newark enters its rapid decline.

American Pastoral won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. It is currently being made into a movie, but it does not appear that any of the filming is being done in Newark.