Philip Roth

In 1968, a hardworking man, who's been a staple in his quaint community for years, watches his seemingly perfect middle class life fall apart as his daughter's new radical political affiliation threatens to destroy their family.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is a 1994 American comedy-drama-romance film based on the 1976 Tom Robbins novel of the same name. The film was directed by Gus Van Sant, Jr. and starred Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, Pat Morita, Angie Dickinson, Keanu Reeves, John Hurt, Rain Phoenix, and Grace Zabriskie. Tom Robbins himself was the narrator. The soundtrack was sung entirely by k.d. lang. The film was dedicated to the late River Phoenix.

When Peter returns to his mother's home, he finds a video tape that makes him realize his life has been a failure. Because of this, Peter tries to make Chris spend time with Brian so Chris doesn't turn out like he does.

On a date with Bonnie, Pete runs into George Payton, who tells him Burger Chef is putting McCann in review. Don arrives at the SC&P office to find Jim explaining to everyone that a new office computer will be installed in the creative lounge. Roger tells Don the decision to get a computer preceded Don's return. Roger, Lou, Jim, and Pete discuss business with Burger Chef on a conference call. Ted recommends putting Peggy in charge to appeal to homemakers. Don is suggested to be put to work, even though Lou thinks he will "implode". Mona and Brooks visit Roger and let him know that Margaret has run away to a hippie commune. Mona wants him to bring her back. Roger says Brooks should get her himself, but Brooks ends up in jail. Lou gives Peggy a $100 weekly raise, putting her in charge of Burger Chef. She can pick her own team, which must include Don. She asks Don and Mathis for 25 taglines by Monday. She later vents to Joan that Burger Chef was given to her in the hopes that she or Don would fail. After Bert tells Don that SC&P has done fine without him, Don grabs a bottle of liquor from Roger's office and pours some into a soda can in his own office. He invites Freddie to a baseball game. Later at Don's apartment, Freddie tells him to sober up, do the work, or he won't get his old job back. Roger and Mona arrive at a rundown farmhouse. Margaret, now calling herself Marigold, welcomes them, saying she's happy now and Ellery cannot be happy if she's not. Roger tries to force her off the farm, saying her son needs her. She refuses: Roger did it to her, so she can do it to Ellery. Back at SC&P, Don arrives and begins typing the Burger Chef tags for Peggy.

Seymour Irving Levov is born and raised in the Weequahic section of Newark, New Jersey, in 1927 as the elder son of a successful Jewish American glove manufacturer, Lou Levov, and his wife Sylvia. Called "the Swede" because of his anomalous blond hair, blue eyes and Nordic good looks, Seymour is a star athlete in high school; a two-year veteran of the Marine Corps; and the narrator Nathan Zuckerman's idol and hero. Zuckerman and Seymour's younger brother, Jerry-who grows into a curmudgeonly, irascible heart surgeon with little empathy for the Swede-are schoolmates and close friends. The Swede eventually takes over his father's glove factory and marries Dawn Dwyer, a former beauty queen from nearby Elizabeth, whom he met in college. Seymour establishes what he believes to be a perfect American life with a beloved wife and daughter, a satisfying business career, and a magnificent house in the idyllic hamlet of Old Rimrock. Yet, as the Vietnam War and racial unrest rack the country and destroy inner-city Newark, his precocious teenage daughter Meredith ("Merry"), beset by an emotionally debilitating stutter and outraged by the war, becomes grotesquely overweight and increasingly radical in her beliefs. In February 1968, Merry plants a bomb in the Old Rimrock post office, which kills a bystander; she goes into permanent hiding. Seymour finds Merry five years later, living in deplorable conditions in inner-city Newark. During this reunion, Merry reveals that she was responsible for several more bombings, killing three more people. Though Merry informs him that her actions were deliberate, Seymour decides to keep their meeting a secret, believing Merry has been manipulated by an unknown political group and a mysterious woman named Rita Cohen. At a dinner party, Seymour discovers that his wife Dawn has been having an affair with Princeton-educated architect William Orcutt III, for whom she undergoes a facelift. Seymour then realizes that his wife is planning to leave him for Orcutt. It is revealed that Seymour himself previously had a short-term affair with Merry's speech therapist, Sheila Salzman, and that she and her husband Shelly hid Merry in their home after the post office bombing. Seymour sadly concludes that everyone he knows may have a veneer of respectability, but each engages in subversive behavior and that he cannot understand the truth about anyone based upon the conduct they outwardly display. He is forced to see the truth about the chaos and discord rumbling beneath the "American pastoral," which has brought about profound personal and societal changes he no longer can ignore. Simultaneously, the dinner party underscores the fact that no one ever truly understands the hearts of other people.