Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories was published by Houghton Mifflin, Boston, on 8 May 1959, in a first printing of approximately 5,000 copies priced at $3.95. Roth was twenty-six. The collection won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1960 — Roth was the youngest recipient in the award’s history — and immediately established him as a major American writer. It also generated the first of many controversies: rabbis denounced the stories from pulpits, accusing Roth of providing ammunition to anti-Semites.
The Novella
“Goodbye, Columbus” follows Neil Klugman, a young Newark librarian from a working-class Jewish family, through a summer love affair with Brenda Patimkin — whose family has moved to the wealthy suburb of Short Hills, where they have a country club membership, a refrigerator full of fruit, and a nose job. The novella is a comedy of class within American Jewish life: Neil’s ironic intelligence versus Brenda’s family’s material confidence; the old Newark world versus the new suburban assimilation.
The title comes from a record album — a souvenir of Brenda’s brother Ron’s Ohio State years — that plays in the Patimkin basement: “Goodbye, Columbus… goodbye to all that.” The phrase captures the bittersweet loss of an older Jewish identity as a new generation assimilates into American prosperity.
The Stories
The five stories are among Roth’s finest:
“The Conversion of the Jews” — A twelve-year-old boy climbs to the roof of his synagogue and threatens to jump unless everyone admits God can do anything — including make a virgin birth. Comic and subversive.
“Defender of the Faith” — A Jewish sergeant, just returned from combat in Europe, is manipulated by a Jewish recruit who uses ethnic solidarity to gain privileges. Roth’s most morally complex early story.
“Eli, the Fanatic” — A suburban Jewish lawyer tries to force a Yeshiva in his community to conform to suburban dress codes. His encounter with a Holocaust survivor destroys his comfortable assimilated identity.
Collecting Goodbye, Columbus
First edition (1959, Houghton Mifflin): Approximately 5,000 copies, priced at $3.95.
Identification points:
- “First Printing” on the copyright page
- Published by Houghton Mifflin Company
- “R” date code in the gutter of the last text page
First edition, first printing:
- Fine/Fine in dust jacket: $2,000–$6,000
- Near Fine in jacket: $800–$2,000
- Without jacket: $100–$300
Signed copies: Roth signed regularly. Signed first editions: $1,500–$4,000.
Value trajectory (2016–2026): Approximately 1.5× for fine copies in jacket. Roth’s death in 2018 and growing canonical stature support steady appreciation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why was this controversial? Jewish readers and religious leaders objected to what they saw as unflattering, stereotype-confirming portraits of Jewish-American life — particularly the materialism of the Patimkins and the manipulativeness of the recruit in “Defender of the Faith.” Roth argued he was writing literature, not public relations.
Is this a novel or a story collection? Both. The title work is a novella (approximately 90 pages); the remaining five pieces are short stories. The collection is unified by theme (Jewish-American identity in transition) rather than by plot.