Goodbye, Vitamin

by Rachel Khong
1(1 ratings)
0 pages
Published 2024
0 min read

An O: the Oprah Magazine and Amazon.com Best Book of 2017 'Khong is a magician ... Brilliant' - Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies. 'Khong’s first novel sneaks up on you – just like life, illness, heartbreak, and love. A million small, human, and often deeply funny details gather force to tell a tale that is ultimately, incredibly poignant' - Miranda July, author of The First Bad Man.

Ruth is thirty and her life is falling apart: she and her fiancé are moving house, but he's moving out to live with another woman; her career is going nowhere; and then she learns that her father, a history professor beloved by his students, has Alzheimer’s. At Christmas, her mother begs her to stay on and help. For a year. "Goodbye, Vitamin" is the wry, beautifully observed story of a woman at a crossroads, as Ruth and her friends attempt to shore up her father’s career; she and her mother obsess over the ambiguous health benefits – in the absence of a cure – of dried jellyfish supplements and vitamin pills; and they all try to forge a new relationship with the brilliant, childlike, irascible man her father has become. 'A beautifully written debut, dreamy and funny ... flawless.' - Independent 'Biting, funny and poignant and makes you wish you’d thought of writing it first.' - Stylist, '50 Unmissable Books' 'Like a chain of fairy lights in the darkness.' - Financial Times 'One of the funniest elegiac novels I have ever read.' - David Leavitt, author of The Lost Language of Cranes

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