The Candy House: A Novel

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 were 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, Bixs new technology, Own Your Unconsciouswhich allows you access to every memory youve ever had, and to share your memories in exchange for access to the memories of othershas seduced multitudes. In the world of Egans 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 stylesfrom 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. Its as if Egan compressed a big 19th-century novel onto a flash drive (The New York Times).