The Candy House

A Novel

By: Jennifer Egan

Narrated by: Michael Boatman, Nicole Lewis, Thomas Sadoski, Colin Donnell, Griffin Newman, Rebecca Lowman, Jackie Sanders, Lucy Liu, Christian Barillas, Tara Lynne Barr, Alex Allwine, Emily Tremaine, Kyle Beltran, Dan Bittner, Chris Henry Coffey

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

ONE of the TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR by THE NEW YORK TIMES * ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY * SLATE* THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER *

Also named one of the BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR by Vanity Fair, Time, NPR, The Guardian, Oprah Daily, Self, Vogue, The New Yorker, BBC, Vulture, and many more!

OLIVIA WILDE to direct A24's TV adaptation of THE CANDY HOUSE and A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD!

From one of the most celebrated writers of our time comes an “inventive, effervescent” (Oprah Daily) novel about the memory and quest for authenticity and human connection.

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 forty, with four kids, restless, and 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. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, “Own Your Unconscious”—which allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share your memories in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes.

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. Intellectually dazzling, The Candy House is also a moving, speculative fiction testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for connection, family, privacy, and love.

“A beautiful exploration of loss, memory, and history” (San Francisco Chronicle), “this is minimalist maximalism. It’s as if Egan compressed a big 19th-century novel onto a flash drive” (The New York Times).

Critic reviews

"The ensemble performance of this novel is exceptional. Michael Boatman narrates the opening chapter at the right pace with the right intonation. He captures the interior life of the enigmatic Bix Boughton, a social media genius who invents the world-altering technology “Own Your Unconscious,” which is crucial to the plot. Alex Allwine delivers a haunting automaton-like second-person narration of the chapter titled “Lulu the Spy, 2032,” Tyra Lynne Barr emulates the chirpy sound of 13-year-old Molly in “The Perimeter After-Molly,” and Dan Bittner supplies sharply insightful tone as Ames, whose life story ends this imaginative tour de force. The time-traveling chapters reprise some of the characters from Egan’s award-winning VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD, but this novel has a wider timeframe, a greater trajectory, and a more complex plot."

4.09 Stars

The sequel to A Visit From the Goon Squad is fairly entertaining, though not as good as the first novel. It had a lot of potential. There's a futuristic and/or sci-fi element to the novel, though the concepts are somewhat vague and never fully explained. It loses some momentum towards the end. Still, pretty good.

Overall rating: 4.09 stars

Sweeping, engrossing, perfection

I’ll be thinking about and revisiting this multi layered book for a long time to come.

Not an enjoyable read

Too many characters with no real ending. I pushed myself through this one and regret it.

Realistic near future story about patriotism, family and unpredictable results of individual decisions

The story uses different media to illustrate characters and circumstances. For example, email back and forth between characters as well as typical narratives. At some points, I lost track of the various characters relationships as they intersected at different times, eras, places. The eerie aspect of memory recordings and brain implants don’t seem far fetched these days. A very interesting book!

Wonderful writing

So many characters and jumps through time makes the audiobook a little hard to follow at times, but nothing a quick relisten here and there won’t solve. Great ensemble group of actors/readers.