Will Lightbody is a man with a stomach ailment whose only sin is loving his wife, Eleanor too much. Eleanor is a health nut, and when in 1907 she journeys to Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's infamous Battle Creek, Michigan spa to live out the vegetarian ethos, 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.
(from the publisher)