Seymour Irving Levov (The Swede) Timeline and Summary

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• In the early 1940s, the Swede is a high school sports star, loved and worshiped by the neighborhood.
• In 1985 Zuckerman and Swede run into each other in New York City for the New York Mets vs. the Houston Astros game.
• Before that, the Swede graduates high school.
• He joins the Marines.
• He's engaged to a woman, but his father breaks up the relationship.
• He returns home and enrolls in college.
• He meets Dawn and marries her.
• In 1995, he writes a letter to Zuckerman asking him to dinner.
• He and Zuckerman have dinner shortly thereafter.
• A few months later he dies.
• We learn he had a daughter known as the "Rimrock Bomber".
• We learn of some of his problems with his daughter, Merry, when she is eleven and sixteen.
• Four months after Merry bombs the post office and disappears, the Swede meets Rita Cohen and gives her money and Merry's things in the hopes of finding Merry.
• Five years go by, and the Swede suffers desperately because he doesn't know what's become of his daughter.
• On Labor Day in 1973, he gets a letter from Rita Cohen telling him where to find Merry.
• He finds her living in terrible conditions.
• He learns she is guilty of the Rimrock bombing, three other murders, and that she's been raped.
• After the visit, he calls his brother Jerry, who berates him.
• He goes home to a dinner party with his parents, Dawn, and three other couples.
• The Swede sees Dawn and Bill Orcutt having sex in the kitchen.
• He imagines running away with Sheila, with whom he had a brief affair after Merry is missing.
• His mind is flooded with images of Merry coming to the house and scaring his father to death.
• After hearing his father scream, he learns his father has been forked in the face by one of the dinner guests.