Author(s): Rachel Khong

Fiction

Hello, ageing parents. Hello, dementia. Goodbye, vitamin...Ruth is thirty and her life is falling apart: she and her fiance 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 that year, 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, sweet old man her father has become. 'Rachel Khong's first novel sneaks up on you - just like life, illness and 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