Is it actually a different book? I’m not interested in doing fan fiction for my own book. There were just a lot of boxes I would need to check before I thought that was worthwhile. The only thing that was not at all clear was whether I would ever publish another book. I knew I would keep writing into that world. And there were things I had tried to do in Goon Squad that didn’t work, so it wasn’t even like I’d been able to exhaust all of the curiosity I had. The whole principle was to follow my curiosity into realms that I might just have glimpsed through the corner of my eye. The decision to keep imagining into that world was never in question, because I was doing that even by the time the book came out. What made you decide to revisit the world of Goon Squad for this novel? I go through many layers of readers to find out if I’m accomplishing that. Because otherwise why do I want to be transported? How can I be? There’s sometimes this feeling that I’m banging on the outside, but I can’t propel myself in. But I do feel there has to be some beguilement, some seduction. And that can be painful-that’s OK, I’m fine with pain. Am I allowed to say that it was really fun to read? The Candy House takes on some serious subjects. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. I reached Egan-who recently completed a term as president of PEN America-over Zoom at her home in Brooklyn to talk about the novel. But The Candy House also explores love, family, identity, addiction, fame, trauma, and fiction through the stories of its many characters, all deftly sketched and heartbreakingly human. The parallels with social media are inescapable, and the novel is indeed a meditation on the effects, personal and societal, of our diminishing private lives. At the center of this web is a new technology, Own Your Unconscious, that allows users to download and preserve their memories-as well as share them with others. The book follows a handful of interconnected characters-some who made appearances, major and minor, in Goon Squad, others who appear here for the first time-hopscotching across the decades, from the 1960s to the 2030s. A starred Kirkus review called it a “thrilling, endlessly stimulating work that demands to be read and reread”-and having read it once myself, I know that I’ll be revisiting it. Now that novel is here, and The Candy House (Scribner, April 5) truly delivers. Could Egan match the extraordinary accomplishments of Goon Squad?

The news was met with rapturous anticipation-and an undercurrent of anxiety. On a podcast in the summer of 2020, novelist Jennifer Egan revealed she was working on a new book that would be a companion to A Visit From the Goon Squad, the 2010 novel that won a National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize and made her a breakout literary star.

Reviews the candy house