Philip Roth's prize-winning first book instantly established its author's reputation as a writer of explosive wit, merciless insight and humane compassion for even the most self-deluding of
his characters.
Goodbye, Columbus is the story of Neil Klugman and pretty, spirited Brenda Patimkin, he of poor Newark, she of suburban Short Hills, who meet one summer and fall into an affair that is as
much about social class and suspicion as it is about love. The novella is accompanied by five short stories - sometimes iconoclastic, sometimes elegiac - that crackle with irreverent
originality and display Roth's blazing early talent.