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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Chinese novelist Mian Mian's American debut offers readers a vicarious journey to a place and time shrouded in mystery: gritty, underground China of the late 1980s through mid-1990s. The story begins in Shanghai, when a classmate's suicide prompts narrator Hong to drop out of high school. Fearing she'll never get a job without an education, Hong heads south to the Special Economic Zone, where the government has lifted restrictions so business can flourish. Among the most successful enterprises are nightclubs, gambling, drugs and prostitution. Hong falls in love with a musician and quickly succumbs to an endless nightlife of sex and drugs and all the problems that tend to accompany such fun. Mian doesn't shy away from the ugliness of this world-alcoholism, drug addiction and AIDS cases abound-but her perceptive, compassionate writing turns Hong's raw experiences into something beautiful. Hong's frequent self-analysis feels honest, unpretentious and believably adolescent; Mian never lets us forget that for all her grim, worldly experience, Hong is still touchingly young and exuberant: "My mood was like my lover's hair. Love, for me, was partly a mood, just like that ultradopey bullshit music that I sometimes liked to listen to. That kind of music made me jumpy, but when I felt tense, I felt happy." Though the prose is uneven, sometimes straining awkwardly for lyrical effect, readers will find Hong a compelling personality.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
An international literary phenomenon-now available for the first time in English translation-Candy is a hip, harrowing tale of risk and desire, the story of a young Chinese woman forging a life for herself in a world seemingly devoid of guidelines. Hong, who narrates the novel, and whose life in many ways parallels the author's own, drops out of high school and runs away at age 17 to the frontier city of Shenzen. As Hong navigates the temptations of the city, she quickly falls in love with a young musician and together they dive into a cruel netherworld of alcohol, drugs, and excess, a life that fails to satisfy Hong's craving for an authentic self, and for a love that will define her. This startling and subversive novel is a blast of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that opens up to us a modern China we've never seen before. - Banned in China-with Mian Mian labeled the 'poster child for spiritual pollution'-CANDY still managed to sell 60,000 copies, as well as countless additional copies in pirated editions. - CANDY has been published in eight countries to date and has become a bestseller in France.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A relateable look into the Chinese underworld,
By Jillian (Southern California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Candy (Paperback)
It's nice to find that even halfway around the world, other people are sharing your pain. I like to read books twice, and although the first time it was mainly a diary of a young girls spiral into the world of sex and heroin, the second time it was a chilling memoir. A release. A warning. The narrator is candid and brutally honest. She brings up a thousand things we all think and feel, and in much prettier language than most of us could ever dream. It's a compelling story, and I highly recommend it to anyone sick of the average fairy-tale ending.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Growing pains,
By Raymond (Kansas, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Candy (Paperback)
I highly reccomend, excellent read. It shows a look into the culture of a young innocent, yet intelligent girl who turns to drugs to fit it with her new wordly lifestyle. It proves and itnerestign peek to the underbelly of the dirty world of China's drug ridden popular shock culture.
4.0 out of 5 stars
writing in a haze,
By A Customer
This review is from: Candy (Paperback)
Mian Mian made a MUCH better choice of translator than her fellow banned writer Wei Hui did for Shanghai Baby. Lingenfelter manages to capture something of the rhythm of the original Chinese without falling into the plodding pace of almost every other translated Chinese work I've seen. Sometimes the book just seems to be trying to shock with lurid detail of drug use and sex, but the main character shows hints of self-awareness and perceptiveness that make it more than just a fun racy read.
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