num_pages: 496
description: Will Lightbody is a man with a stomach ailment whose only sin is loving his wife, Eleanor, too much. Eleanor is a health nut of the first stripe, and when in 1907 she journeys to Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's infamous Battle Creek Spa to live out the vegetarian ethos, poor Will goes too. So begins T. Coraghessan Boyle's wickedly comic look at turn-of-the-century fanatics in search of the magic pill to prolong their lives - or the profit to be had from manufacturing it. Brimming with a Dickensian cast of characters and laced with wildly wonderful plot twists, Jane Smiley in The New York Times Book Review called The Road to Wellville "a marvel, enjoyable from beginning to end."
language: English
title: The Road to Wellville
titlecomplete: The Road to Wellville
characters: Eleanor Lightbody, Charlie Ossining, Goodloe H. Bender, Dr John Harvey Kellogg, Will Lightbody, George Kellogg
genres: Historical, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Health, Literature, The United States Of America, Fiction, Contemporary, Humor
ratings_count: 6472
places: Battle Creek, Michigan, Michigan
publisher: Penguin Books