"The Candy House" by Jennifer Egan (Corsair, 2022).

One chapter (story?) was in The New Yorker.

Build

• The affinity charm - Rich, famous black Bix Bouton (41) is married to Lizzie. They have 4 kids, the last, Gregory (3) is still breastfeeding. He feels empty, lacking ideas. He joins a discussion group under an assumed name, enjoys the banter, finds himself walking through New York at night with pretty Rebecca (c.25). Alone again, he reaches a bridge and recalls how his mates Rob and Drew jumped in, Rob dying. He phones his mother-in-law, asking her what he should do next.
• Case study: No one gets hurt - Even by the age of 9, Alfred Hollander's "intolerance of fakery had jumped the life/art barrier and entered his everyday world". His brothers Ames (who went into Special Ops) and Miles weren't impressed. He's impressed by Jack, a friend of Ames whose mother had died. At 11 Alfred wore a brown bag over his head. In 2009 he made a 3-hour documentary film free of artifice called "The Migratory Patterns of North American Geese". His parents divorce. His mother has an affair with Jack. Rebecca Amari is doing a PhD about authenticity in the digital era. Kirsten and Alfred start going out. He visits his relatives with her, says something provocative, then they leave to track down Jack. He's divorced with kids. He seems happy. Kirsten tells Alfred (who by now is mocking his film) that Jake is inauthentic.
• A journey A stranger comes to town - Miles and Drew's PoVs. Miles (52) has an artist cousin Sasha who stole from the family as a kid, returning things when she married Drew. Sasha's boy Lincoln is "troubled". We learn that Miles, with a wife Trudy, 3 kids and a serious job, took uppers and downers, eventually using a drug dealer Damon. He had an affair with Trudy's friend Janna, who in an accident while he was driving lost a leg. He had a metal plate put on his head. Trudy divorced him. He looked after the kids, helping people with rehab. He buys some of Bix's products including Hey What Ever Happened To?™ which lets you download memories as search terms. He sees Bix's memory of Rob's last night. He had a happy enough upbringing. Sasha didn't. He decides to visit her in the desert. Her recycled art pieces are best seen from the air. He and Drew go on a hot air balloon at dawn. Drew saves him when he tries to jump. He spends 3 weeks in a psych ward and ends up living in the area, finding a law job.
• Rhyme scheme - Lincoln's PoV. He's a metrics expert, a "counter", giving percentage success rates to actions (including the chat-up tactics involved with meeting Madelaine, who he finally marries). Other people are "typicals" or "impressionists". The company he works for has "determined that a new generation of hermit crab programs has been designed specifically to elude our proxy filters" - an inside job. O'Brien, his boss, is sacked.

Break

• The mystery of our mother - Lana and Melora (born mid-70s) are daughters of a twice divorced father with 4 kids already. He leaves when they're young. He's a record producer with a private beach. When they're 16 she does fieldwork in the Amazon for months. They live with their father. His son Rolph kills himself. She publishes "Patterns of Affinity" (a book of algorithms about human behaviour - she "mapped the genome of human inclinations") in 1999. We're told she's Miranda Klein. She becomes famous. In 2025, aged 74, she disappears, replacing herself by a proxy (an AI program). Her daughters don't realise for a while. Melora takes over her father's business after he has 6 strokes.
• What the forest remembers - "I" watched the recreated memories of her father on a trip into woods with banking friends. They stay in an A-frame, smoke grass.
• Bright day - Roxy (child of father's middle marriage - she ODs in 2025 when 57) is in rehab. Chris and Molly (their company is called Modrian) visit to host Dungeons and Dragons, where character details are chosen by dice. She's gifted a Consciousness Cube. She tries to relive a trip with her father to London when she was 17 and appearing on music videos.
• i, the protagonist - Chris works for Sid's "Sweetspot" which algebra-izes stock narratives. Comstock takes him for a ride on his motorbike, collects a woman from the airport, and leaves him with her luggage.

Drop

• The perimeter: after - Molly used to live next to Chris Salazar before her parents divorced.
• Lulu the spy, 2032 - 2-column with 53 numbered sections. How an analytical woman deals with being singled by a male on a Med beach. "The Dissociation Technique is like a parachute - you must pull the cord at the correct time" ... "Return to your body carefully, as if reentering your home after a hurricane". She has an implanted microphone. She's married, 33. She's taken from a party by speedboat with her Designated Mate, who's meeting an important person at a clifftop villa - "If it calms you to imagine your husband tracking your dot of night, then imagine it" ... "An uncomprehending giggle is a beauty's most reliable tool for diffusing conflict". He leaves in a hurry on the boat. She's found by the new host's "alpha beauty". She says she's been dumped. She's taken to the villa. In the night she downloads everything from the host's phone. She's discovered by the woman, who shoots her in the shoulder. She escapes in another speedboat. She dissociates without meaning to, to escape the pain. A helicopter saves her.
• The perimeter: before Hannah recounts living next to the Salazars. The wife's supposed brother Jules moved in then 9 months later the husband moves out. Hannah's mother and Jules don't get on, then she makes up once she learns more about him.
• See below - sections have headings like "Lulu→Ashleigh". Lulu, now 35, wife of Joseph has a child. There's talk of reviving a rock group.

Build

• Eureka gold - through Gregory (Bix's son) we learn of Bix's death and his deathbed uploading. Gregory 'had declined even the ritual "baseline" upload to a Mandala Cube, now customary at age twenty-one as a hedge against brain injuries.' Bix had tried to track down Melanie Klein, then had befriended Chris. In his will he left Mondrian lots of money.
• Middle son (area of detail) - It's 1991. Mother Sue watches middle son Ames play baseball. She's nervous. He flukes a memorable hit. We learn that he goes into Special Ops, becomes a freelance assassin, then in 2023 aged 43 retires and buys the family house, living with his mother by then divorced for 20 years. We're told about other lives he could have had, and some facts from the Collective. "Even so, there are gaps: holes left by eluding separatists bent upon hoarding their memories and keep their secrets. Only Gregory Bouton's machine - this one, fiction - lets us roam with absolute freedom through the human collective." He dies alone in a nursing home, over 90 years old.

I would have had to read it again to connect the pieces. I should have made more notes - it's hard knowing which details/people will matter later. I liked "Lulu the spy, 2032". The first and final sections were satisfying. I struggled with "See below" and several of the other sections didn't deliver much.

Other reviews

• Beejay Silcox (explores the loneliness of hyper-connectivity ... a novel of Easter eggs – of hidden in-joke treats ... What felt playful in Goon Squad now feels a little stale)