Goodbye, Vitamin

'Khong is a magician ... Brilliant' — Lauren Groff, author of Fates & Furies

‘Khong’s first novel sneaks up on you – just like life, illness & heartbreak. And love. A million small, human & often deeply funny details gather force to tell a tale that is ultimately, incredibly poignant’ — Miranda July, author of The First Bad Man

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Ruth is thirty & her life is falling apart: she & her fiancé are moving house, but he's moving out to live with another woman; her career is going nowhere; & 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 & help. For a year.

Goodbye, Vitamin is the wry, beautifully observed story of a woman at a crossroads, as Ruth & her friends attempt to shore up her father’s career; she & her mother obsess over the ambiguous health benefits – in the absence of a cure – of dried jellyfish supplements & vitamin pills; & they all try to forge a new relationship with the brilliant, childlike, irascible man her father has become.

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Rachel Khong studied at Yale and the University of Florida. Her fiction & non-fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, The Believer, Pitchfork & Village Voice. In 2013, she was named one of Refinery29's 30 under 30. Goodbye, Vitamin is her first novel.