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The Candy House

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
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Publisher's summary

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 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).

©2022 Jennifer Egan. All rights reserved (P)2022 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Interview: Jennifer Egan Asks, How Much Sharing Is Too Much Sharing?

'I'm looking for the action in my own head.'
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  • The Candy House
  • 'I'm looking for the action in my own head.'

Editor's Pick

You can’t resist The Candy House
When I heard that 2022 would be the year Jennifer Egan was coming out with a companion to her mind-expanding, Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad, I felt an immediate need to revisit this book I first read way back in 2010. I downloaded and listened and realized, wow—I missed a lot the first time around, or maybe it’s me that’s changed over the past 10-plus years? And then it was time to take in The Candy House. I didn’t have to go through this preparation—both novels stand on their own—but it was a very satisfying experiment. The Candy House is so much fun! It comes alive in dozens of entwined stories, performed by an incredible cast of narrators. It’s a world a lot like this one, if this world had a utopian/dystopian product known as Own Your Unconscious, a cube that lets a user upload his or her memories, tap into the memories of others who’ve uploaded theirs, and watch them like movies. It’s all so seemingly unimaginable yet inevitable at the same time. I’m still a little dizzy. —Tricia F., Audible Editor

What listeners say about The Candy House

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    3 out of 5 stars

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

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Sweeping, engrossing, perfection

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

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    1 out of 5 stars

Not an enjoyable read

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

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

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!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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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.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

A wandering story

This book felt like it lacked a central plot line - at least one that I could identify. It was more a series of character vignettes that sort of tied together in very minor ways, but I never really felt like I knew where the book was taking me. And still feel that way at the end… a bit lost and a bit disappointed. The author otherwise has a nice writing style, so it’s too bad I couldn’t connect with it.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good book

Not my favorite but I liked the writing and complex concepts. It was hard to follow and connect to all the characters

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    2 out of 5 stars

Maybe a better read than a listen

I fumbled through Goon Squad but thought I'd give this one a shot as so many seem to love the author's work.

As an audio book, it is just too disorganized to follow. I have a disability that limits my reading to audio books. Without a visual aid, this story just doesn't come together. perhaps a hard copy would provide a vastly different experience.

Cool idea, just not the ideal platform for delivery

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Performances were the best part of the book.

So, maybe I’m just not an artistic intellectual, but this book was just average for me. There are too many characters that I did not develop a bond with any of them because the moment you start delving into their psyche, you jump to the next or back and forth between people and time. Some chapters were pure winners with interesting stories, most of them I found my brain glossing over.

I couldn’t finish the book. I tried.

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    3 out of 5 stars

Uniquely great

Interesting characters, humor and very thought provoking ideas about the future of technology. I am amazed at the authors imagination and ability to weave together the stories of so many characters. The last chapter is especially wonderful.

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