NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER

"A masterpiece."--Newsweek

The prize-winning first book that instantly established Philip Roth as a major literary voice and as an unflinching, sharp observer of life--especially Jewish lives in postwar America.

Goodbye, Columbus follows the relationship between Neil Klugman, a working-class kid from Newark, and pretty, Radcliffe-bound Brenda Patimkin from the wealthy suburbs. They embark on a summer affair that introduces Neil to a new and unsettling society of sex, leisure, and loss. The novella is accompanied by five remarkable short stories that illuminate the lives of the American Jewish diaspora.