How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
The daughter who transports [the Swede] out of the longed for American pastoral and […] into the indigenous American berserk. (3.114)
This is one of the novel's most quoted lines. The word "indigenous" is important. It alludes to the indigenous or original inhabitants of America (the Native Americans) and the extreme violence done to them in the name of the American dream. On some level, the novel connects the tragedy of Merry with that original American tragedy.
Quote #5
A TWA jet is bombed in Las Vegas. […] A bomb goes off in the pentagon—in a women's restroom on the fourth floor of the Air Force area of the Pentagon! (4.176)
During the five years Merry is missing, between 1968 and 1973, the Swede watches a lot of news. This is a snippet of dozens of similar news items. Readers have to look lots of stuff up to determine which of the news bites are real and which are the products of the twisted mind of Nathan Zuckerman. Either way, this period in American history was extremely volatile.
Quote #6
These were the factories where people had lost fingers and arms and got their feet crushed and their face scalded, where children once labored in the heat and the cold, the nineteenth century factories that churned up people and churned up goods […]. (5.65)
This moment, when the Swede is exploring Merry's neighborhood, hearkens back to another volatile period in American history (the US Civil War) and the factories of Newark during that time.