Candyman

Rating:
Summary: Clear-Eyed Portrait of Family Life
Review: This book was a real eye-opener. The author portrays the 1950's and life as it was then. There is a real story behind the images. Excellent book, I would recommend it to anyone in the market for a really good novel.

Rating:
Summary: Really Great Book!!!
Review: This book was a real eye-opener. The author portrays the 1950's and life as it was then. There is a real story behind the images. Excellent book, I would recommend it to anyone in the market for a really good novel.

Rating:
Summary: Clear-Eyed Portrait of Family Life
Review: This is an in depth story of a poor but educated family struggling through economic hardships that result from a series of misfortunes: first the father, Charles LeBlanc, loses his decent-paying white-collar job and starts a business selling candy from a truck to the corner stores in the city, but eventually poor health and age leave him ill suited to the physical demands of the job, and business fails as a result. His wife, Claire, who is 25 years his junior, begins to work as a substitute teacher out of necessity and also out of determination that her family should enjoy some degree of prosperity, however limited. The marriage is strained. The story is told in the third person with a shifting narrative perspective; the reader is given, at various times, the thoughts of Charles, Claire, and Nicole, the second eldest child. The tone is wistful and the sadness that permeates will probably produce some tears, but there are also a few screamingly funny scenes of misbehavior on the part of the four children. This novel neither sensationalizes disfunctional relationships nor idealizes family values; it is a clear-eyed portrait of one family's complicated life, a portrait that is always subtly handled, never heavy handed. Candyman is storytelling at its best--emotionally and psychologically astute, it remains always a great novel and never a case history.