True Confections by Katharine Weber

True Confections by Katharine Weber, 274 p.

When I read reviews of Katharine Weber's novels, I often put them on my "to read" list. They are usually reviewed so favorably and the concepts, so clever. Let's just say that waaayyyy more books make that list than the "books I've read" list. This time, when Weber's novel showed up on at least one, if not more, of the Best of 2010 lists and it happened to be on the shelf when I read the list, I got my second chance. I'm so glad I did. The novel is a first person account, actually a signed affadavit of how Alice Ziplinsky wanders into, marries into, and otherwise in unlikely ways ends up as controlling shareholder in Zip's Candies, a family-owned and operated chocolate company. What's to love? For one thing there's chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate, as well as lots of information about how it is made and marketed, not only by this fictional company but by the candy industry in general (lots of candy superstar namedropping). What else? It's a story of how an almost-lost teenager girl finds a family. It's the multigenerational saga of that family from its Hungarian immigrant beginnings to the present. It's a story about race (the company's candy lines are named for/inspired by a stolen library copy of Little Black Sambo from which the company's founder taught himself English). And finally it's a story about how Alice finds and loses love, weathers betrayal, and ultimately savors self-reliance and staisfaction. A very clever story.