Thirty-year-old Ruth finds her life unraveling when her fiancé leaves her and her career stagnates. Compounding her troubles, she returns home for Christmas to discover her beloved history professor father is succumbing to Alzheimer's disease. Her mother, overwhelmed, begs Ruth to stay on for a year to help. As Ruth navigates this unexpected crossroads, she delves into her father's fragmented memories, attempting to shore up his fading legacy. Alongside her friends and mother, she tries ambiguous health remedies, like dried jellyfish supplements, and grapples with the transformation of her brilliant father into an unpredictable, childlike figure. "Goodbye, Vitamin" is a poignant and darkly humorous exploration of family, memory, loss, and the resilience of love, as Ruth attempts to forge a new relationship with the man her father has become, all while confronting her own arrested development.
Critical Reception
"Praised for its brilliant wit, profound poignancy, and beautifully observed prose, 'Goodbye, Vitamin' is widely celebrated as a masterful and elegiac debut that deftly blends humor with heartbreak."