**Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine,
Vogue, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Huffington Post,
Nylon, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, Booklist, and The
Independent
**
Winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist for First Fiction
"A quietly brilliant disquisition . . . told in prose that is so
startling in its spare beauty that I found myself thinking about
Khong's turns of phrase for days after I finished reading."--Doree
Shafrir, The New York Times Book Review
"One of those rare books that is both devastating and light-hearted,
heartful and joyful. . . . Don't miss it."--Buzzfeed
"Hello, Rachel Khong. Kudos for this delectable take on familial
devotion and dementia."--NPR
Her life at a crossroads, a young woman goes home again in this funny
and inescapably moving debut from a wonderfully original new literary
voice.
Freshly disengaged from her fiancé and feeling that life has not turned
out quite the way she planned, thirty-year-old Ruth quits her job,
leaves town and arrives at her parents' home to find that situation more
complicated than she'd realized. Her father, a prominent history
professor, is losing his memory and is only erratically lucid. Ruth's
mother, meanwhile, is lucidly erratic. But as Ruth's father's condition
intensifies, the comedy in her situation takes hold, gently transforming
her all her grief.
Told in captivating glimpses and drawn from a deep well of insight,
humor, and unexpected tenderness, Goodbye, Vitamin pilots through the
loss, love, and absurdity of finding one's footing in this life.
