NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER - From the Pulitzer Prize-winnning writer of explosive wit merciless insight and a fierce compassion comes a masterpiece (Newsweek) that illuminates the subterranean conflicts between parents and children and friends and neighbors in the American Jewish diaspora. Roth s award-winning first book instantly established its author s reputation. 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 break and dive 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 that range in tone from the iconoclastic to the astonishingly tender.