First published 2022
Bix Bouton stands at forty with four children and a tech fortune, but he needs his next breakthrough. When he encounters Columbia professors experimenting with memory extraction, inspiration strikes. Within ten years, his creation Own Your Unconscious transforms society by allowing people to access every memory they've ever had and trade those memories with others. The technology seduces millions who crave total recall and connection through shared experience. But resistance emerges. Some become "counters" who track and manipulate human desires for profit. Others turn into "eluders" who recognize the true cost of entering what they call the Candy House. Through multiple characters whose lives intersect across decades, the consequences of surrendering private memory unfold. Egan tells their stories through shifting narrative styles, from group voices to letters to social media posts. The novel explores how people navigate a world where the boundary between self and others dissolves, where gaming and alternate realities blur with daily life. At its heart, this is about the human need for genuine connection, love, family bonds, personal privacy, and redemption in an age when our most intimate thoughts become currency.
Genres: fiction, science-fiction, dystopia, contemporary, 21st-century, artificial-intelligence
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Columbia
Period: 10 Years
352 pages · Hardcover · Scribner