The Candy House

A Novel

Jennifer Egan

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781476716770
• eBook ISBN: 9781476716787
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

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, speculative fiction 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).

DROP

The Perimeter: After

When I really need to cry my guts out I go in the Ladies Locker Room which is empty on weekdays because the Tennis Moms are already playing tennis and the Golf Moms are playing golf and the Moms With Little Children can’t bring them inside the Ladies Locker Room because kids have to be thirteen so this is my first summer of being old enough and something about this place calms me down, maybe the soft carpeting or so many lotions and creams by the mirrors or maybe it’s the sound, like someone humming just one note, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm that helps me deal with the fact that Stella my best friend is DROPPING ME AGAIN, this has been going on since fourth grade because the only way not to be dropped by Stella is to act like you don’t care and I DO CARE, it’s too late to find new friends, the other groups don’t want me because Stella is mean and I’ve been mean trying to stay her friend and just BE POPULAR and BE ON TOP which is the only way not to live in constant danger of what is going on behind your back such as just now at the Snack Shack I was waiting with Stella and Iona for grilled cheese sandwiches and Chris Salazar and Colin Bingham walked by and Stella and Iona SMILED AT EACH OTHER SECRETLY and when I tried to share that smile they both looked away TRYING NOT TO LAUGH which means Stella is HAVING PRIVATE FACEBOOK CHATS WITHOUT ME about Chris Salazar who she has liked forever.

Before, when my family lived next door to the Salazars, Stella was like Molly, do you ever see Chris Salazar inside his house? and I was like No there are trees in between our houses and she was like Well, do you know where his room is? and for some reason I was like No, but I did know from a cocktail party I went to Before, when we lived next door. Chris’s room faces the front and there’s a green lamp in his window and now sometimes I walk Biscuit our new Welsh Corgi past our old house at night where we don’t live anymore because Mom and Dad are Divorced, and I look for that green lamp to be turned on and then I know Chris Salazar is awake and I might be in love with him too.

After Stella and Iona and I got our grilled cheese sandwiches we were carrying them to the Herb Garden which is where Stella likes to eat and I stopped to fix my sandal and Stella and Iona JUST KEPT WALKING AND DID NOT WAIT FOR ME and when I stood up they were already far away and I would’ve had to run to catch up with them which is hard to do carrying a grilled cheese sandwich, and I knew they’d be like Oh. Hi Molly, not wanting me there, so I went the other way to the Ladies Locker Room to cry.

Why is Stella on top you might ask, well who can understand Popularity although I’m sure it has been studied by Universities, Stella’s family is rich but no one is poor around here let’s face it, she is extremely pretty with thick brown hair and green eyes but that is not “it” since other girls are just as pretty but they are not electric. Colors are literally brighter when Stella gives you her full attention but also there’s this feeling of peace, you don’t need to scramble or fight to try to get someplace else because you are THERE, but then again maybe all of that is BECAUSE Stella is popular rather than the reason for her popularity, it is a “chicken-and-egg question” I think.

Back when I was younger Mom would say, “Look, Molly, you have two options: stop caring about Stella or make her come crawling back, and if you pick the latter I will help you.” I didn’t have the strength to walk away from Stella so Mom planned a Kitten Cap Party in fourth grade where she would help every girl make a kitten cap, Mom is a very good sewer and I invited all of the girls who mattered EXCEPT for Stella and of course she found out and started being nice again, but Mom said DO NOT BUDGE until she gives you Tears and Groveling, nothing less, and on the morning of the Kitten Cap Party Stella came with her mom to our house “wanting to talk,” and Mom poured Stella’s Mom a cup of coffee although she has privately called Stella’s Mom a “superficial dunce,” and Stella and I went upstairs to my room and she cried and apologized saying I was her best friend she just liked to hurt me sometimes but that was the last time and PLEASE could she come to my Kitten Cap Party? So I had my Tears and Groveling, and Stella and I came back downstairs holding hands and I said Mom I want to invite Stella, I’ll let her have my kitten cap materials but Mom said, “Actually, I believe we have one extra!”

That’s how it has worked out with crochet squares and another time a treasure hunt but all of that was BEFORE Dad told Mom he wanted a Separation. Brian and I had no idea, it was a school night and we were doing homework but as soon as Dad told Mom about wanting a Separation, Mom went into our Art Supply Cabinet and made a “HOUSE FOR SALE” sign out of pasteboard and black Sharpie and nailed it to a gardening stake and hammered the stake directly into our front lawn in the pitch dark, and when Brian and I heard the racket we came outside and Dad was already out there pleading with Mom, “Noreen, is this really necessary?” and Mom said, “Actions have consequences, Bruce.” That was more than a year ago and I still don’t know what Actions she meant, now Brian and I live with Mom in an Apartment and Hannah stays in Dad’s Apartment when she comes home from College, and when I asked Hannah about Dad’s Actions and their Consequences, she said, “Mom is impossible, Molly, have you never noticed that?”

When I’m done crying I soak cotton balls in Witch Hazel and dab my cheeks with them and brush my hair and eat a Jolly Rancher green apple candy from a glass jar. Then I hear two Ladies come into the Ladies Locker Room so I scamper behind the last row of polished wood lockers to hide and I recognize the voices of Stephanie Salazar who is Chris Salazar’s Mom and Kathy Bingham who is her Doubles Partner. Kathy is one of the prettiest Moms in the Club maybe THE prettiest, and her husband Clay is one of the richest Dads and they have five children including Colin, Chris’s best friend who was recently caught shoplifting tools from Home Depot. I hear Stephanie and Kathy opening their lockers and Kathy obviously thinking the locker room is empty, says: Harriet’s backhand just keeps getting worse. She should give up on the lessons.

• Stephanie: Or maybe find another pro. I have my doubts about Henri.
• Kathy: Henri is a fucking disaster.
• Stephanie: He’s still new. Who knows if they teach tennis differently in France.
• Kathy: That little blonde, Marisol, is so pigeon-toed it’s a miracle she doesn’t fall flat on her face.
• Stephanie: She got some good shots off you.
• Kathy: It was the first time I’d seen her play.
• Stephanie: Anyway, we won.
• Kathy: I wish we’d won by more.
• Stephanie: I’m heading out to the pool.
• Kathy: Does it hurt a lot, getting a tattoo?
• Stephanie: Are you thinking about it?
• Kathy: Sort of.
• Stephanie: What would you get?
• Kathy: I don’t know, something symbolic. What does yours symbolize?
• Stephanie: Well, the image comes from a piece of Minoan pottery that was made on Crete during the Bronze Age. The Minoans had this beautiful way of representing sea life that I fell in love with in my college art history class, and I got the tattoo in my twenties when I first moved to New York, so probably what it symbolized most of all was a big fuck-you to my parents, who hated tattoos and were scandalized.
• Long pause.
• Kathy: Where did you go to college again?
• Stephanie: U. of Illinois Champaign. You?
• Kathy: Harvard. It’s kind of amazing we’re friends, isn’t it?
• Stephanie: I’d say we’re doubles partners.
• Kathy: Nice.
• Stephanie: You can take it.
• Kathy: You get the chairs, I’ll grab us a couple of iced teas.

They leave the Ladies Locker Room together and I sit there trying to understand what I just heard, whether Stephanie and Kathy are friends or not, and if they were joking or not, or whether that was a fight. Then I realize that while I was eavesdropping on those Tennis Moms I COMPLETELY FORGOT about Stella and Iona and I feel much better now, and since feeling strong is the best way to regain my advantage with Stella who also loves gossip about grown-ups, I rush out of the Ladies Locker Room and gallop over the stretch of grass to the Herb Garden all ready to sing out Hiya Folks! but THE HERB GARDEN IS EMPTY and I feel like a horse’s ass to use a phrase of Dad’s, so I lean down like I just sprinted over to smell the herbs in this Herb Garden which could not be more wrong, I don’t care about plants th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Build
• Break
• Drop
• Build
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright