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

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 fianc 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. Ruths mother, meanwhile, is lucidly erratic. But as Ruth’s fathers 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 ones footing in this life.