The Candy House
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The Candy House
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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By:
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Jennifer Egan
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
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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'
Fantastic narration of an interesting book
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Last year I read ‘The Goon Squad’ as was pretty impressed. The Candy House, while still solid, is a bit more like the B-side version of ‘The ‘Goon Squad’ set in the same universe with may of the characters reappearing (or being referenced) in some fashion. The Candy House offers something for everyone. A compelling bunch of loosely strung together short stories for those dipping their toes into Egan’s world to those who are super committed and invested in charting how all these characters interrelate across generations. As my patience for all this multiverse is waning, I’m probably in the middle… I get how they’re connected but more interested in moments of great writing.
What The Candy House has over the ‘The Goon Squad’ is how Egan delves deeper into adopting various interesting personas and experimenting with authorial voice. There are some stand-out chapter - the high-functioning autistic, the spy from the future, etc. And there are some forgettable ones as well (those email chains back and forth do nothing for me). So it’s a real mix and therefore navigating the muddy waters between interesting and semi-interesting.
Overall, while clever and compelling, I don’t know if I’d be keen on a C-sides (is that a thing?) of ‘The Goon Squad.’ I think it’s time to turn this page and for Egan to do something new!
Goon Squad b-sides…but that’s no bad thing
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This is awful
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narration didn't draw me in.
could have used some hard editing.
trying too hard
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