[MUSIC PLAYING] (SINGING) When you walk in the room, do you have sway?

I'm Kara Swisher, and you're listening to "Sway." A world where share your most personal data, where you can watch replays of your own memories and other people's, where many think content sharing has gotten out of control.

No, I'm not talking about our current reality.

I'm talking about the world my guest, writer Jennifer Egan, dreams up in her new book, "The Candy House." It's the sequel to "A Visit From the Goon Squad, " which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011. In "The Candy House, " a new technology called the consciousness cube allows your mind to be uploaded to the cloud.

So I wanted to talk to Egan about how close we are to this immersive world and how dystopian it would actually be.

Jennifer Egan, welcome to "Sway." Thank you.

So I want you to talk about the idea for this book.

You've created a world where technology has allowed us to immerse ourselves in each other's memories.

Why did you want to write this, I guess, it's a sequel or a sibling to your first book about that.

Well, in a way, the world of "Goon Squad" never really ended for me.