| View Larger Image | Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction | Paperbackby Luke Davies (Author)
| List Price: | $13.95 | | Price: | $10.04 | | You Save: | $3.91 (28%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Ballantine Books | | Page Count: | 304 Pages | | Publication Date: | June 16, 1998 | | Sales Rank: | 35,899th |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9780345423870
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
"Candy is beside me, drenched in sweat. She's breathing gently, long slow breaths. I imagine her soul going in and out: wanting to leave, wanting to come back, wanting to leave, wanting to come back. The day will soon harden into what we need to do. But for now we have each other. . . ."He met Candy amid a lush Sydney summer. Gorgeous, sexy, free-spirited Candy. They fell in love fast, lots of laughter and lust, the days melting warmly into each other. He never planned to give her a habit. But she wanted a taste. And wasn't love, after all, about sharing lives? Candy had a bit of money and in the beginning, everything was beautiful. Heady, heroin-hazed days, the world open and inviting. But when the money ran out, the craving remained, and the days ceased their luxurious stretch.But there was still love. Only now, it was a threesome. Heroin had its own demands, its own timetable, and thoughts of nabbing the next fix hurled them into each day. Then, when desperation sets in, Candy will stop at nothing to secure a blast, as she and her lover become hostage to the nightmarish world of addiction. Painful, sexy, tender, and charged with dark humor, Candy provocatively charts the daily rituals of two lovers maintaining a long-term junk habit. Told in stunningly vivid prose and set against the backdrop of suburban and urban Australia, Candy is both an electrifying and frightening glimpse of contemporary life and love. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 84 reviews)
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davies is a poetic genius by candy girl (nowhere, United States)  5 Stars
May 27, 2009
it's almost difficult for me to put into words how incredibly beautiful and tragic this novel is. there is no book out there.. no movie.. that demonstrates so accurately the mind and life of a heroin addict. there were times i felt davies was telling my story, that he had reached into my mind and memories and put them on paper. i've read this novel so many times now and i still continue to because there is a peace in knowing you are not alone with your experiences. please do not judge the actions of a junkie unless you have lived in their shoes. the book, even in it's genius, cannot fully convey what it is really and truly like. the descriptions are perfection but as davies explains, unless you are in the withdrawals it's quite easy to forget it's pain.. i laughed out loud numerous times. felt deeply connected. reminisced and ultimately was grateful to no longer be in that hopeless, hellish and yet deeply beautiful place. best book ever.
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A Lovely Addiction by Alex (Virginia) 5 Stars
January 24, 2009
I took time out of my regular round of reading to read this novel after watching the movie staring Heath Ledger.
Normally the book is far better than the movie, but not this time. This time the movie and the book, for me, are just as good as each other. There are changes from the book to the movie and there are some things that the movie left out that the book had in there, but the jump from the pages to the screen was a good one.
I loved this fom start to finish. Davies makes you feel what Dan and Candy are feeling without having you actually start on heroin yourself. This book doesn't glamourize the drug, it makes it real. But the book isn't just about drug addiction it's about a love addiction between two people who just happen to be hooked on heroin.
You can't help but want to root for them as they try numerous times to quit, but can't. You want to scream all the time you can do it, but you know it doesn't happen. The ending is very well thought out and moving.
This is a book that should be on the shelves everywhere.
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Tedious... by Honest  2 Stars
November 22, 2008
...at best.
I'm an avid reader and enjoyed this to a point. As a snapshop into the depravity of the addicted mind this was a decent read.
The language is concise and the author well informed.
I just found the story very bleak and uninteresting once the doomed pair relapse for the first time.
As a recovering addict of various intoxicants I did not feel compelled to get through what reads like a parallel rehashing of my own life experiences.
I would recommend this to anyone that thinks drugs are a fun ride without consequences.
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candy by Jennifer L. Hart 5 Stars
September 07, 2008
I would have liked to know which cover design I would get. The one I received was different from the one pictured.
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Simultaneously halycon and horrific by Magdalena Ball 5 Stars
July 09, 2008
Davies' first novel Candy became a cult classic when it was released in 1997, and it's not hard to see why. At face value, it has a grungy, sexy appeal, featuring the gripping, through the keyhole details of a serious heroin addiction, and two attractive main characters who have lots of sex, and experience a welter of often orgasmic pleasure and intense pain. It's an easily read, fast paced bildungsroman which offers a satisfyingly vicarious experience. But Candy is more than a sad love story or a novel about drug addiction. The sweet attraction of the title may be simultaneously heroin, sugary substances, and the novel's beautiful subject, but the story is about more than simply the desirable substances that drives the narrative forward. This is a novel about the universals of human need. Davies is first and foremost a poet, and the linguistic tautness of the book reflects this. Although the narration is cool, set in the detached context of a distanced memoir, there are italicised passages prefixed with the title "truth" that take the reader below the skin and bones of the linear narration and move us into a place which is timeless. Candy is an easy book to read, but not an easy one to deal with. It leaves the reader feeling shattered, as if he or she had been through a similar experience. The verisimilitude in characterisation, setting, and in the great detail of the activities of the narrator and Candy are all part of why this book weaves its spell on the reader. With the nostalgic resonance of a story simultaneously halcyon and horrific, the reader feels the power of the great love felt by the narrator for people, sensations and places lost forever. ~~ Magdalena Ball is the author of Sleep Before Evening
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