This wildly inventive sequel to Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad has some familiar characters but takes the story in new directions and envisions a world where people can upload their memories and experiences into a collective unconscious, the other can tap into. Intellectually stunning, The Candy House is also a moving testimony to the tenacity and transcendence of human longings for connection, family, privacy and love. Egan presents these characters in a bewildering variety of narrative styles, from omniscient to first-person plural, a duo voice, a letter chapter, and a tweet chapter. In Egan’s world of spectacular fantasy, there are “Counters” who pursue and exploit lust, and there are “Dodgers”, those who understand the price of taking a bite out of Candy House. In a decade, Bix’s new technology, Own Your Unconscious, which allows you to access every memory you’ve ever had and share your memories in exchange for access to the memories of others, has won a multitude of people excited. Bix is forty years old, four children, restless and desperate for a new idea when he stumbles upon a discussion group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memories. The Candy House begins with the amazingly brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company Mandala is so successful he’s “one of those technological demigods we all know ourselves to be”.
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