Sweet Nothings: Confessions of a Candy Lover

Candies serve as the jumping-off points for these delectable essays from memoirist Perry (After the Eclipse). “Sex and sugar are connected for me,” Perry contends, describing how she relied on the pleasures of Lindor chocolate truffles as a substitute for sex when the stresses of the Covid-19 pandemic left her partner uninterested in making love. She uses the bittersweet flavor of Moxie, an old-fashioned soda, as a metaphor for her ambivalent feelings about her hometown in rural Maine, explaining that while the place still evokes painful memories of her mother’s murder when Perry was a child, its charming provinciality meant that when she returned as an adult seeking relief for a persistent yeast infection, her doctor still prescribed such folk remedies as gentian violet, which cured her and derives from the same plant that gives Moxie its bitter aftertaste. Elsewhere, Perry uses sweets to recall episodes from throughout her life, writing, for instance, that “my mother, who loved a Payday, was 2 to 5 percent more beautiful on payday... when she shook out her curly hair and took me on an early evening drive... singing along to the radio as the light angled down orange into the evening.” The evocative prose finds surprising depth in sugary confections. This is one to savor. Illus. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (Feb.)