In Exit West, as often with relatives of those with Alzheimer’s, that point comes too suddenly and leaves a wake of regret. In Goodbye, Vitamin, Ruth’s father carries letters he wrote to his daughter when she was young to bridge the murky divide, yet wanders around lost in his own neighborhood and terrifies his family with blind, blackout rages where he smashes the furniture and dishes.Īnd with both displacement and dementia, there comes a point of no return, when the ground which was vacated becomes lost forever, buried under rubble or a permanent darkness.

My mother-in-law could remember her childhood vividly, yet not the daughters she raised. For both, home becomes an abstract concept that grows both fonder and more distant. One loses physical ground, while the other loses any memory of it. And just this past Christmas, we buried my mother-in-law after Alzheimer’s had whittled her down to nothing. As a reporter in Congo, I spent years writing about refugees and mass movements of displaced persons fleeing war and famine.

Goodbye, Vitamin is narrated by a 30-year-old woman named Ruth who, after suffering a breakup, moves home with her parents to care for her father, a professor and former alcoholic who now has Alzheimer’s.īoth books were oddly personal for me. Known connections to this year’s contenders: “None.”Įxit West follows the journey of Saeed and Nadia, two lovers who flee their unnamed country as it descends into chaos and war, only to discover a series of magical doors that serve as first-world escape hatches for millions of refugees on the move. Bryan Mealer is a journalist and the author of four books, including the bestselling The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (with William Kamkwamba), soon to be a major film, and The Kings of Big Spring: God, Oil, and One Family’s Search for the American Dream.

Goodbye vitamin novel