The Candy House (Large Print / Library Binding)

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Staff Reviews


If you ever pondered where we are going as a society with all the immense technological changes we have experienced, then please give yourself the gift of reading Jennifer Egan’s book The Candy House.

It is a wonderfully weird book with lots of seemingly disjointed characters and time frames that describe a possible (probable?) world. Perhaps we should slow down and ponder consequences for a couple of minutes. The story starts with a brilliant techy (Bix) who is feeling the pressure to come up with his next big thing. He lands on the idea of externalizing our memories and uploading them to a Collective Consciousness because everyone is a closet voyeur? Why wouldn’t a company come up with such an ingenious idea? I would want to know the memories of my dad when he went to a concert in his youth. What could be the problem? We live in a capitalist world where the pursuit of money is a god so, yes, of course, hook up some tech to my body and let ‘er rip.

Inevitably, we learn that things are so much more complicated than we thought. Bix got the idea from the work of a field anthropologist who had lived in the Amazon studying tribes who are well known to each other and their histories. She developed a theory of how to map the genome of human inclinations and developed algorithms for predicting human behavior, which allowed social media companies to monetize their business. She never thought her work, which required intimate relationships between people with shared histories, would morph into a movement that alters the course of humans.

The characters in this book seem tangential to each other, but they can overlap. The reading is a little jarring, but we are in jarring times because of the inter-play of technology and humans and the pursuit of money. There is a lot in this book. Jennifer Egan is a brilliant writer but I hope her story of The Candy House does not come to fruition. 

— Holly Hendricks

April 2022 Indie Next List


“Egan weaves together these seemingly disparate characters and storylines into a stunning ending. The Candy House is about family, connection, legacy, technology, and so much more. It is her best work yet.”
— Ariana Paliobagis, Country Bookshelf, Bozeman, MT

Description


From one of the most celebrated writers of our time, a literary figure with cult status, a "sibling novel" to her Pulitzer Prize- and NBCC Award-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad--an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity and meaning in a world where memories and identities are no longer private.

The Candy House opens with the staggeringly brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company, Mandala, is so successful that he is "one of those tech demi-gods with whom we're all on a first name basis." Bix is 40, with four kids, restless, desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or "externalizing" memory. It's 2010. Within a decade, Bix's new technology, "Own Your Unconscious"--that allows you access to every memory you've ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others--has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.

In spellbinding interlocking narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Intellectually dazzling, The Candy House is also extraordinarily moving, a testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption. In the world of Egan's spectacular imagination, there are "counters" who track and exploit desires and there are "eluders," those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of narrative styles--from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter and a chapter of tweets.

If Goon Squad was organized like a concept album, The Candy House incorporates Electronic Dance Music's more disjunctive approach. The parts are titled: Build, Break, Drop. With an emphasis on gaming, portals, and alternate worlds, its structure also suggests the experience of moving among dimensions in a role-playing game.

The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. Egan takes to stunning new heights her "deeply intuitive forays into the darker aspects of our technology-driven, image-saturated culture" (Vogue). The Candy House delivers an absolutely extraordinary combination of fierce, exhilarating intelligence and heart.

About the Author


Jennifer Egan is the author of six previous books of fiction: Manhattan Beach, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction; A Visit from the Goon Squad, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; The Keep; the story collection Emerald City; Look at Me, a National Book Award Finalist; and The Invisible Circus. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Granta, McSweeney's, and The New York Times Magazine. Her website is JenniferEgan.com.
Product Details
ISBN: 9781432895587
ISBN-10: 1432895583
Large Print: Yes
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Publication Date: April 27th, 2022
Pages: 549
Language: English