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The Candy House

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The Candy House

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

 PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD


From one of the most dazzling and iconic writers of our time comes an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity, privacy, and meaning in a world where our memories are no longer our own--featuring characters from A Visit from the Goon Squad.

It's 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He's forty, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or "externalising" memory. 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 linked narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Intellectually dazzling and extraordinarily moving, The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. With a focus on social media, gaming, and alternate worlds, you can almost experience moving among dimensions in a role-playing game. Egan takes her "deeply intuitive forays into the darker aspects of our technology-driven, image-saturated culture" (Vogue) to stunning new heights and delivers a fierce and exhilarating testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption.

Full List of Narrators:

Alex Allwine
Ali Andre Ali
Allison Light
Chris Henry Coffey
Christian Barillas
Colin Donnell
Corey Brill
Dan Bittner
Danny Campbell
Emily Tremaine
George Newbern
Gibson Frazier
Griffin Newman
Jackie Sanders
Kyle Beltran
Lucy Liu
Michael Boatman
Nicole Lewis
Rebecca Lowman
Tara Lynne Barr
Thomas Sadoski
Timothy Andrés Pabon
Travis Tonn©2022 Jennifer Egan Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Technothrillers Thriller & Suspense Thriller Technology Fiction Suspense

Critic reviews

'A complex, compelling read that showcases Egan's masterful storytelling'
'Fans of A Visit from the Goon Squad will not want to miss this new novel'
'A thrilling, endlessly stimulating work that demands to be read and reread'
'Egan returns to the fertile territory and characters of A Visit from the Goon Squad with an electrifying and shape-shifting story that one-ups its Pulitzer-winning predecessor'
'A forceful, wonderfully fragmented novel of a terrifyingly possible future, as intellectually rigorous as it is formally impressive, and yet another monumental work from Egan'
'Playfully twists various narratives into a series of compelling interconnected vignettes, featuring many of the same characters from her award-laden 2010 novel. Ever the consummate storyteller and with a deft and powerful sense of characterisation, Egan is sure to have struck gold once more'
'A fast-paced polyvoiced romp through America in the grip of a sinister tech that allows others into your mind. EEK! Includes a dazzling novella Egan wrote' (Margaret Atwood, via Twitter)
'Egan is skilful, even masterful, at writing in a variety of styles and formats to suit each character's voice, making the book that much more real and that much more affecting'
Impressive
A dazzling feat of literary construction that belies the profound questions at its core: Does technology aid our sense of narrative or obscure it?
You don't have to read A Visit From the Goon Squad to love this sibling novel to Egan's stellar hit...complex and intimate
Inventive, effervescent...Egan plaits multiple narratives and techniques to underscore the manifold ways our own desires betray us in a brave new coded world
Very funny, penetrating, and impactful
Tech guru Bix Bouton creates 'Own Your Unconscious,' a technology that allows users to access and share every memory they've ever had. It's a concept so killer, it's hard to believe such technology doesn't already exist
[The Candy House] does what only the best and rarest books can: peel back the thin membrane of ordinary life, and find transcendence on the other side
Haunting and often hilarious...a wondrous, riotously inventive work of speculative fiction
'Humming with a sustained brio, The Candy House is especially rewarding on a micro level. Even post-BLM, Egan felt free to write from the perspective of a black character, as she should feel free, and she's apt to get away with it, too. The chapter narrated by an autistic character is convincing. Egan is particularly good at evoking the insecure teenage girl. The writing is stylish: "a man of so few words that the occasional word he did utter had the cleaving finality of an ax splitting a log". The novel is spirited, playful, sometimes incisive. So who cares if I can't remember anyone's name'
All stars
Most relevant
I note this book has received near universal acclaim from reviewers at the time of writing. Certainly the writing and performances are both excellent, and some story strands were engaging and thought provoking. Unfortunately my little brain struggled to retain all the various characters and understand how everything fit together. It all seemed a little tenuous tbh.

Emperor's Clothes?

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This was a great book. Not the easiest of reads and definitely requires concentration but a great story. As always some narrators easier to listen to than others but definitely helped build up the different characters. Once I got stuck in I really enjoyed it

Brilliantly written

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‘Nothing is free only children expect otherwise even if myths and fairytales warn us’

‘The Candy House’ is a sequel to Jennifer Egan’s 2011 Pulitzer Prize winning novel ‘A Visit From the Goon Squad.’ However although it isn’t essential to have read that novel in order to make sense of ‘The Candy House’ for it to be fully appreciated I would advice you do so, otherwise you will be missing out on so much. And to be honest it’s probably a good idea to have read it recently as some of what happens depends on a clear memory of the events in that novel. This is because ‘The Candy House’ is at its heart a novel of memory.

As well as memory it is also a novel about technology, the title ‘The Candy House’ is taken from Hansel and Gretel and is a metaphor for the sugar coated delights of the internet and social media, ‘Never trust a Candy House.’

‘A Visit From the Goon Squad’ was a novel comprised of a series of interconnecting short stories, stories that weren’t told in chronological order and were written in numerous narrative styles including a Power Point presentation. If you navigated that book successfully then you shouldn’t have any problems with this as it’s written in a similar style again delivered in small bites (or should I say ‘bytes’) and styles. The stories are all told in different voices and different ways including a story written in email format and one as a set of field instructions to an agent. And like the first book the stories aren’t in chronological order. The stories are intriguing and complex and are populated by a richly imagined set of characters. The way the book is written can leave you a little disoriented but I loved that, the feeling of uncertainty, trying to work out where it was going or what would happen next. I particularly liked the challenge of working out which characters from Goons each of the chapters in Candy House were about. At no point in the book was I bored or found my mind wandering, it’s totally engaging. I actually think it’s better than ‘Goon Squad’.

The book begins in 2010 as Bix Boulton over hears a conversation concerning downloading or "externalising" memory. Within 10 years he has produced ‘Own Your Unconscious’ a new piece of technology that allows you access to every memory you've ever had, and to share it with others in exchange for access to their memories. The consequences of that technology is seen through the lives of several characters who’s lives intersect over several years. Focusing on social media, gaming and role playing such as Dungeons and Dragons Egan explores the darker aspects of a world driven by technology. At the centre of this Egan finds a human race so wrapped up in the cyber world that it struggles to connect. Her characters yearn for real physical connections such as love and the intimacy of family, most of the families here are dysfunctional. At times the advances in technology move the novel into the realms of Sci-Fi, technologies that allow anonymous people inside your head, inside your own private world. The thought that there could be spyware inside you, it’s a frightening concept. And yet it isn’t that far removed from our lives today. How many of us regularly give up parts of our lives and share our dreams and almost every thought through Facebook, Instagram, twitter etc with hundreds if not thousands of anonymous people. That isn’t a frightening concept, that’s reality.

‘To hell with God’ Fern said ‘I am worried about the internet.’
‘By which you mean an all seeing all knowing entity that may be predicting and controlling your behaviour even when you think you’re choosing for yourself’ Eamon asked.’

There is a part in the story in which Egan takes us back to 1991, where there are no computers, no mobile phones, no intrusive controlling technology, just a regular family interacting and engaging with each other at a child’s baseball game, a happy family. Is this just rose coloured glasses? There is no question the advances in technology enhance our lives, but there is a heavy price to pay.

‘The Candy House’ is a thought provoking novel, it’s clever, exhilarating and masterfully told. Jennifer Egan is a truly unique writer and I would thoroughly recommend it, but I would also urge you to read ‘A Visit From the Goon Squad’ first if you haven’t already.

The story is narrated by several different people which works really well with stories being to,d by a multitude of different characters.

Thought provoking, unique and clever

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The writing is very original and the story opening is compelling, but after a while it becomes impossible to connect between all the characters and their stories (unless you use an excel), and the final chapters stop making any sense. I usually enjoy complex narratives and had no problem tracking the storyline in my favourite book ‘Hundred years of solitude’ (despite the fact most of the characters have almost the same name!), but in this case I gave up and stop reading with 1h left.

Impossible to follow

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Absolutely Brilliant!!!! So many fascinating ideas. Jennifer Egan captures our current challenges perfectly. I loved it.

Brilliant!!

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