The Candy Factory

Katharine Weber's True Confections is the story of one Alice Tatnall Ziplinsky's life in the world of Zip's Candies, a world she entered through her marriage.  Weber begins this novel with an affidavit by Alice that the following is "true and correct to the best of my knowledge."  Although we know fairly early on that Alice is known as an arsonist, we are teased with the details of that arson interspersed with life in a candy factory.  The teasing way she tells her story makes the reader yearn for more and read on. The story leaps from one event to another, skipping details, only to jump back to an earlier topic, thus tantalizing the reader the way a good chocolate bar might.

But all is not perfect about this book.  The author's detour into one character's escape from WWII Hungary to Madagascar is murky and confused at best.  The main character, who is narrating this escape admits to making things up, but that does not help.