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 Candor, Florida, is the community everyone dreams of – perfect in every way. So begins the recently published book title Candor, a young-adult science fiction novel written by former Celebration resident Pam Bachorz. In her book, Bachorz, now a resident of Silver Spring, MD, explores what might happen if a perfect community did indeed exist. Using the six years she lived in Celebration as a backdrop for her novel, she creates an intriguing story that will fascinate readers of any age according to the women of the Celebration Book Club who recently read and discussed the book.
Celebration’s cornerstones, Community, Place, Health, Education, and Technology, were put in place so that families could build an ideal community. When the first person I met upon moving here was a childhood friend of my daughter’s, I took it as a sign that the dream was true. Then my young friend had to leave when his affordable apartment turned condo, and I began to see cracks in the dream.
In Candor, Bachorz imagines what might have happened if the dream had stayed intact. She uses our fountain, walkways, and even Founders Park, to set the stage for perfection, and then lets her and our imagination run to the edges. Candor, Florida only looks like Celebration, Florida. In Candor, everyone is successful, all children are happy (study groups are in), and every parent is proud. All of this is true because the community’s developer, Campbell Banks, pipes subliminal messages into each home built in Candor. He even designs unique messages at the request of parents so their children who struggled in the outside world will become the people their parents want them to be.
Banks’ teenage son, Oscar, knows about the messages, and is making money hand over fist helping other teens escape them, until Kia, moves to town. As Oscar struggles with the dilemma caused by this new friendship and the awareness of the power of the messages, the reader struggles with him. This is Romeo and Juliet plus Hamlet told succinctly, creatively, and disturbingly.
In an October phone conversation with the Celebration Book Club, Bachorz answered some questions about her characters’ back stories and unresolved conflicts. She said, “I left (a lot) to the reader’s imagination. Life goes on for the characters in the reader’s mind as the reader moves on.”
However, the residents of Candor, Florida do not move on. They will never have a Veterans Memorial in their Founders Park, for example. The messages don’t allow for grief. But the residents of Celebration, Florida do. We watch with sadness as businesses close and we reach out with compassion when neighbors suffer. Together we celebrate loss and renewal.
I’ll be candid. I’m rather glad we face the challenges we do as a community, for they make Celebration one with every other town in the country - they make us real. Learn more about Candor at http://www.candorfl.com. Learn more about Pam at http://www.pambachorz.com.
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