The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle (1993). 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 this 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. It is a novel brimming with a Dickensian cast of characters and laced with wildly wonderful plot twists.
Total Points: 4 (AWald 4)