The Road to Wellville [Hardcover]

T. C. Boyle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1993

The latest novel by the author of World's End focuses on the great American breakfast food and exotic enema craze of 1907 to comment on the national quest for health and longevity. 100,000 first printing. First serial Rolling Stone. BOMC. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Each time out, Boyle ( World's End ; East Is East ) aims for a new target, and this time he has hit the bull's - eye. Wellville is a rich plumcake of a book, full of ripely conceived characters, satire both broad and bitter, beautifully integrated period atmosphere and writing that is colorful but considered. Set in Battle Creek, Mich., in the early years of the century, it evokes the days of C. W. Post and Will Kellogg, when fortunes were being made and lost in the national rage for the new breakfast cereals. Will's brother, John Harvey Kellogg, was an early diet devotee; to his hugely successful Battle Creek Spa came the flower of American business and society to trim their waistlines, work out and eat the kind of healthy, tasteless foods sadly recognizable to any weight watcher today. Kellogg, a showman par excellence, ran it like a small but ruthless dictatorship. Among his clients the winter of 1907, in Boyle's fictionalized account, are Will and Eleanor Lightbody, he a decent man wasting away at the urging of his fanatical wife; among the hopefuls struggling to make their names in the cereals business is engaging young ne'er-do-well Charles Ossining. How all their paths cross, how Will saves his ghastly marriage and Charles almost goes to jail but is rescued at the 11th hour and ultimately makes his pile: Boyle has woven all this into a tale told with the broad humanism and compassionate eye of a great 19th-century novelist. Truth and fiction are invisibly blended in Boyle's splendid novel, in which a loving concern for the innocent at heart touchingly prevails. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; film rights to Alan Parker/Beacon Pictures; first serial to Rolling Stone; author tour; BOMC selection.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-This novel gives readers insight into the health attitudes and morals of the early 1900s. It's also a riot to read. Boyle points out the ease with which medicine was manufactured at the turn of the century, and the dangers of taking them. John Harvey Kellogg, founder of Kellogg cereals, is mercilessly portrayed as an unethical doctor who purposely misinformed his patients. He supported his outlandish claims with circus tricks that demonstrated the violent potential of eating meat. The man is also shown to have had a humanitarian side. He adopted over 52 children, many of whom went on to become successful doctors and lawyers. Another of the main characters, Will Lightbody, unwittingly becomes addicted to Sears's White Star Liquor Cure. He has a chronically upset stomach, and the tonic his physician prescribes has alcohol as the main ingredient. Will's wife, in a desperate attempt to cure his alcoholism, surreptitiously slips "the cure" into his evening coffee-the active ingredient being opium. And so the story continues.
Heidi M. Steinhauer, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: The Viking Press; 1st edition (May 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670843342
• ISBN-13: 978-0670843343
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #735,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

T. C. Boyle is the author of eleven novels, including World's End (winner of the PEN/FaulknerAward), Drop City (a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award), and The Inner Circle. His most recent story collections are Tooth and Claw and The Human Fly and Other Stories.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "A steak is every bit as deadly as a gun.", June 8, 2004

By 

S. Calhoun "rhymeswithorange" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Road to Wellville (Mass Market Paperback)

At the turn of the 20th century Battle Creek, Michigan was a magnet for the health-conscious while simultaneously attracting breakfast food speculators from around the country. In THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE T.C. Boyle spins an insightful and entertaining tale combining both of these historical movements. After surviving many attempts to making breakfast food products that were sabotaged by his jealous brother, he turned his attention to developing a sanitarium to launch his firm beliefs in a scientific diet that will treat the nation's ill health. After much hard work and determinism Kellogg's dream soon materialized as the sick traveled from afar to undergo daily enemas and milk diets in an effort to cleanse their systems.

According to the back cover this book is "wickedly comic" and "a comic tour de force", but I felt that this book wasn't all that laugh-out-loud funny. Sure, there is a plenty of T.C. Boyle's smart and intelligent prose but rarely did I find myself giggling while reading. The only passages that made me smile included the antics of Dr. Kellogg's disobedient foster son, especially the Christmas caroling scene.

All in all, I appreciated this book for its unique glimpse into this often-forgotten piece of American history; it's difficult to go wrong with T.C. Boyle as he always seems to spin an entertaining story.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Father Knows Best, Or So He Says, June 19, 2003

By 

IRA Ross (LYNDHURST, NJ United States 07071) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Road to Wellville (Mass Market Paperback)

John Harvey Kellogg was a man ahead of his time. From the family that invented the corn flake, Dr. Kellogg ran a Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, that was one of the first of its kind in America. Concerned with the physiologic health of its inmates (mostly from the wealthy and upper middle class population), Dr. Kellogg prescribed lots of exercise, enemas, a diet consisting of milk, vegetables, fruits, and grains. No meat of any kind was allowed. The inbibing of alcohol was forbidden as was any kind of sexual activity. Sleeping quarters, even for husbands and wives, were strictly segregated. Dr. Kellogg also performed various experiments to create different types of foods (e.g. corn pulp). He even kept a laboratory holding containers of various animals' feces which Dr. Kellogg believed had the same nutritional value as a steak. Dr. Kellogg was a rigid, self-righteous man who thoroughly believed in his infallability. Never mind that one of his patient's skin was steadily becoming green and that another one was accidentally electrocuted while lolling in a sinusodial bath. We later learn that Dr. Kellogg misdiagnosed one of his patients as having "autointoxication" (all of his patients were allegedly suffering from this malady), when what he really had was an intestinal ulcer. Nor would Dr. Kellogg brook any disagreements with him or his methods. Besides his closest competitor, C.W. Post (whose slogan, "the road to wellville" Dr. Kellogg thoroughly despised), the individual who gave Dr. Kellogg the most trouble was his adopted son, George, who was extraordinarily hostile, rebellious, and downright psychotic. Dr. Kellogg believed that George was the only failure in his brood of 42 adopted children.

_The Road To Wellville_ is populated with many colorful and eccentric characters. These include the businessman Will Lightbody (whose name perfectly described him) and his wife, Eleanor, who convinced her husband to accompany her to the San. Both, according to Dr. Kellogg were very ill. Will, who occasionally strayed from the San to partake of hamburger sandwiches and liquid libations, must endure severe punishment for his recalcitrance. Eleanor was befriended by Lionel Badger, in whom Dr. Kellogg deeply mistrusted, and who was a radical anti-vivisectionist and a thorough believer in nudism. Eleanor was also treated outside the San by the German, monocle wearing Dr. Spitzvogel, who would have gone to prison if his methods were judged by today's standards. There is young Charlie Ossining, whom Will and Eleanor met while on their train trip to Battle Creek. Will and others invest in Charlie's breakfast food scheme. Charlie hoped that his venture would enable him to cash in during the then current breakfast food craze. Unfortunately, Charlie's plans go awry because he must contend with Bender, his flagrently dishonest business partner.

T.C. Boyle tell his novel with lots of verve, humor, warmth, and humanity. Because Boyle cares deeply about his characters, so do we. What makes _The Road To Wellville_ so poignant is its relevance to today's world. Who amongst us is not familiar with the various diet fads that promise to make the obese lose up to 30 lbs. in two weeks? New health and sports clubs constantly crop up everywhere that brag about their latest state of the art exercise equipment. And who has not seen TV advertisements hawking all sorts of gadgets, and what not that were specially designed to build up men's abs or to flatten women's tummys? So order _The Road To Wellville_ now, and if you do not find it thoroughly enjoyable, engaging, and funny, your local book store owner will totally refund your money.

23 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious satire with a timely message, December 6, 2000

By 

Shantell Powell "The ShanMonster" (Kitchener, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Road to Wellville (Mass Market Paperback)

The Road to Wellville is going on my list of absolute favourite books. This is one of the funniest novels I have ever read, and also one of the most educational. T. Coraghessan Boyle has perfected the art of understatement. One of my favourite parts is when Eleanor Lightbody is receiving her German therapeutic massage: "She sank beneath it, dreaming of those sylvan glades, of men and women alike gamboling through Bavarian meadows, as naked as God made them, and she felt herself moving, too, the gentlest friction of her hips against the leather padding, moving forward and downwards and ever so therapeutically into that firm sure touch." Trust me, when you get to that part of the book, all will make sense in a most delightful way!

This is a chronicle of the scatological misadventures of the spa/health set of the 1890s/1900s. Why do I say scatological? Well, John Kellogg (inventor of corn flakes and peanut butter) was obsessed with the alimentary canal. He believed a strict regimen of no fewer than five enemas per day was necessary for good health. His obsession with defecatory health permeates the novel and gives it its own unique...er...flavour.

But the novel is not a coprocentric treatise. It is a hilarious, rollicking journey through the life of a quack who didn't know he was a quack, and through the lives of those he effected.

I was first introduced to this tale through the critically-panned film version (which I personally enjoyed very much!). The book shares many common plot elements with the story, but, as is the usual case, is far superior to its film adaptation. It is also a very quick and easy read.

It's easy to disassociate myself from the ridiculous treatments included in this book (breathing in radium as a means of treating jaundice is a perfect example), but, I can't help but think T. Coraghessan Boyle may have meant this book to serve also as a cautionary tale. Sure, it's fun to laugh at those silly people of a hundred years ago, but similarly ridiculous and life-threatening "treatments" are being given out now under the guise of holistic healing.