My sweet tooth has become less and less prominent as I continue to age, but on the rare occasions that I do buy a candy snack, it's usually Junior Mints or a Zero bar.
However, when I was a wee lad, I had two favorite treats. One was the Nestle "Triple Decker" Bar. It was shaped exactly like a Hershey bar; a flat, thin rectangle, with break-off squares. However, it had (working from the bottom up) a layer of dark chocolate, a layer of white chocolate, and a layer of milk chocolate. I simply adored these things, and was heartbroken when Nestle stopped making them.
My other favorite treat was, oddly enough, something mentioned by name in a book I'd recently read entitled Kritzer Time. It wasn't candy, it was Vernor's Ginger Ale. Now, I've always assumed Vernor's was a local Midwest brand; I've only seen it in Upper Michigan and Wisconsin. It's still quite popular in the UP, and once in a while, it shows up at Kowalski's Market here in Minneapolis. (And whenever it does, I go nuts and buy a case or two.)
Which brings me to Kritzer Time. (Didn't you just love that segue? I'm certainly impressed with it...)
When I was in college, I was reading an essay on criticism by T.S. Eliot. And in it, he used the term "felt life", which meant the quality of a work literate that makes one feel that one has actually experienced the events of the piece. I like that term a lot, but I don't get to use it often when I'm evaluating a novel.
Kritzer Time has that quality. It works by getting under your skin, and making you feel like you're there; when the main character hears a song or sees a film, since there's a good chance you've heard the song or have seen the movie, Benjamin's reaction to it becomes the key to unlocking the character. It's a unique approach; I've never read anything quite like the three Kritzer novels. And that's a very, very good thing.
Also, the novel doesn't dwell on the negative. It's there, and it's never very far away, but unlike so many other autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novels, the ratio of bad times to good times seems to be in proportion to real life. And when the bad times hit, sometimes the most appropriate thing to do is to accept it (however difficult it may be!) and just move on. How many times have I read novels that self-indulgently dwell on negativity? Too damned many. Kritzer Time avoids these maudlin pratfuls and delivers something infinitely more valuable. It's something called "entertainment".
And, like any really good work of literature, Kritzer Time leaves you wanting more. That's entertainment value for you!
