veins. The narrator and Candy eventually give up their drug business and go on methadone, successfully rehabilitating themselves. With cash from Candy's parents they are able to buy a rundown farm in the countryside, however as she comes down off heroin Candy becomes bitter about both her relationship with the narrator and her relationship with her parents. After she has an affair with a neighbor who deals pot, things fall apart. The narrator leaves and stays with an old friend whom he angers, and gets kicked out after two days. The narrator then begins his own affair but is soon called by Candy's father. Candy has had a full nervous breakdown and is hospitalised. The narrator makes his way home to find a very changed and very delusional Candy. After she is released they try one more time, but the narrator breaks the rules after running into Casper. Candy leaves the narrator, and shortly afterward Casper is caught making heroin. His employer sends him to rehab but Casper leaves, knowing that action marks the end of his career. Casper then gets antidepressants and alcohol, goes to his lab, cooks one last batch, and commits suicide. The narrator goes into rehab and sobers up. He sees Candy the first chance he is allowed to, and she tells him she knows they have to end. They have to stay apart to be clean. Background Davies has admitted the novel is based on his experiences as a heroin addict in the 1980s, the "worst years" being 1984 to 1990. Sydney and Melbourne were the epicentres of a "severe" heroin problem during this period. Davies has also emphasised that the novel is "fiction rather than memoir". Following the release of the film based on the book, also called Candy (2006), Melbourne painter Megan Bannister was identified as the woman who is portrayed as Candy in the novel. She and Davies were married for six years during the 1980s and confirms that key events in the film (and novel) really did happen except that "living it was 50,000 times worse". Davies put the story together over the course of the early 1990s, stating in interviews that "chapters were written separately and out of sequence". The first edition was published on 16 June 1998. Themes Candy is an intense, and at times taxing, exploration of the heroin addiction shared by a young couple deeply in love.