The Social Network

In 2010 Jennifer Egan won the Pulitzer Prize for her remarkable novel A Visit from the Goon Squad. It was unlike anything I had ever read. Egan cleverly played with form and style, creatively writing with wit and intellect. Each chapter was its own short story, with memorable characters who appear in each other's narratives. Linking these stories were themes of music and the passage of time. The sheer delight I experienced reading (and re-reading) Goon Squad was profound, a high I have been searching for ever since. 

My cravings have been satisfied with Egan's latest novel The Candy House (2022). While not exactly a sequel to Goon Squad, it is more like a companion piece. Written in the same non-linear way, the interlinked chapters reconnect readers with beloved characters, woven in a tight tapestry that is only fully visible when you zoom out at the end. 

Instead of the backdrop of music, technology is the temptation of The Candy House. Bix Bouton, founder of social media giant Mandala, has developed a new product called 'Own Your Unconscious' where you can download your entire memory bank to a cube and review past events you may have forgotten or not registered at the time. If you choose, you can upload all or parts of your memory to the 'Collective Consciousness' where others can view it. Even if you choose not to engage, you may appear in other people's memories of shared experiences. While some characters engage willingly with these tools, others (like Chris Salazar and his company Mondrian) are 'eluders', fighting against this loss of privacy, endeavouring to disrupt invasive technology. While this may sound like a dystopian sci-fi story, it is actually a tautly written meditation on human connection.

Egan has an incredible ability to write in a diverse range of styles. One chapter is written as a series of emails between a number of different characters. Another is as an instruction manual to a field agent on a mission. We learn of the 'algebraization' of people's experiences, and the way in which human behaviour can be counted, predicted and compartmentalised. We learn about language, the 'word-casings' of overused words that have lost all meaning. While some styles and chapters worked better for me than others, I loved becoming reacquainted with characters like Sasha, La Doll, Lulu,  Lou, Lincoln and more, as we explored the near future in the digital age. 

Readers do not need to have read A Visit from the Goon Squad to enjoy The Candy House, but your reading experience will definitely be enhanced by reading both. It takes some time to get used to the way these novels work, but an open-mind and a willingness to experiment will definitely reward readers. 

My review of Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad is also available on this blog.