Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction

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**Title** **Candy: A novel of Love and Addiction**

Author	Luke Davies
Country	Australia
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Ballantine Books
Released	16 June 1998
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	304 (Paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0345423879 (paperback edition)

Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction is a novel by Luke Davies

1 Plot Introduction
- 1.1 Plot Summary
2 Quotes/Excerpts
3 Awards and nominations
4 Film adaptation
5 Release details
6 Sources

[edit] Plot Introduction

Candy is a novel of love and addiction; a first person account of one mans love for the two pillars of his existence, which both happen to be Candy. One is a beautiful young dancer of suburban pedigree, the other goes by a multitude of names: Gear, Smack, Horse, Hammer.

Luke Davies brings the reader through the lives of the countless individuals ensnared by contemporary heroin addiction. The vivid description of the lifestyle suggests that Candy is a semi-autobiographical account of days not soon forgotten by Davies.

[edit] Plot Summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Candy came into his life when supply was bountiful; times were good and her arrival only made things better. Both looking for excitement they found more than they bargained for. He felt that he had found his kindred spirit, his twin: he wanted to share absolutely everything with her. He fell in love; she fell double time, for him and his addiction. Now she was a part of him, a part of his problem. In the early days of their mutual love they were on a wild ride that expanded their senses and heightened their passion for one another. Money runs out and reality kicks in. They know they have to stop before addiction sets in, no one told Candy the anguish associated with getting clean. No one told her that she was addicted after her first taste.

Things fall apart, hard. Feeding their addiction consumes their every waking hour. He runs second-rate scams while Candy hocks her arse. Dreams are put off or lost forever. The day to quit is around the corner but it never comes. Detox is a miserable failure a multitude of times. Life is hard, except when they’re stoned; then life is beautiful or at least bearable.

Love holds them together in a world of inescapable addiction. The only way to lose the demon is to lose one another. If you love someone let them go; they chose life over the one-way path they had been following for too long.

Candy is a love story. It is also a novel about addiction. From the heady narcissism of the narrator's first days with his new lover, Candy, and the relative innocence of their shared habit, Candy charts their decline. Candy becomes a prostitute, the narrator becomes a scam artist, and smack becomes the total and only focus of their lives. But this is not just another junkie novel: Davies is a very fine writer and Candy is confronting, painful, sexy, tender and at times darkly hilarious. A remarkable novel.

[edit] Quotes/Excerpts

There were good times and bad times, but in the beginning there were more good times.

there is only heroin, there is only Candy, the three of us adrift on the endless sea of love. We carry the ocean within us and with us wherever we go.

I can no longer cry. I groan a few times. Through the slits that are my eyes, I stare at my shoes, at the gray swirls of the concrete floor, at the bright orange lid of my syringe. And I realize-it’s all kind of a horror-that this is my life. And I can’t stop. I just can’t stop. I can’t stop anymore.

Candy was still just getting into smack and it was the gravy train, lots of hitting up-I used to do it for her, slipping the steel into those marble-white arms-

AIDS was everywhere; I wanted it no more than the next person. Occasionally, however, fate dictated that you had to take a chance. As a junkie you had to spend a lot of time crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

I went to the bedroom and Candy already had a belt tied around her arm. There were times when I loved her enthusiasm.

He was that rare breed, a casual user. They belong in nature documentaries.

Detoxing is more unpleasant than almost anything, and anyway, detoxing doesn’t work. You always use in the end.

I was jealous of the way animals led their lives and didn’t have drug problems.

The luxurious privacy of hitting up in the disabled’s toilet, where you had your own basin and the door reached fully to the ground.

[edit] Awards and nominations

Shortlisted, Christina Stead Prize for fiction, New South Wales Premer's Literary Awards 1999

Joint Winner, Best Young Australian Novelist, Sydney Morning Herald 1998

Shortlisted, Addison Wesley Longman Award for the Best Cover/Jacket D

[edit] Film adaptation

The film released in 2006 is based on the book and stars Heath Ledger as Dan, Abbie Cornish as Candy, Geoffrey Rush as Casper, Noni Hazlehurst as Mrs. Wyatt and Tony Martin as Mr. Wyatt. The film adaptation was directed by Neil Armfield and produced by Emily Sherman and Margaret Fink.