Publisher Description

Jack Isidore is a 'crap artist', a collector of crackpot ideas and worthless objects. His beliefs make him a man apparently unsuited for real life and so his sister, an edgy and aggressive woman, and his brother-in-law, a crass and foul-mouthed businessman, feel compelled to rescue him from it. But, observed through Jack's murderously innocent gaze, Fay and Charley Hume are seen to be just as obsessed as Jack. Their obsessions may be a little more acceptable than Jack's but they are uglier. And, in the end and thanks to Jack's intervention, theirs lead to tragedy . . .

Notes

A funny, horribly accurate account of life in California in the 1950s.

Author Biography

Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) was born in Chicago but lived in California for most of his life. He went to college at Berkeley for a year, ran a record store and had his own classical-music show on a local radio station. He published his first short story, Beyond Lies the Wub in 1952. Among his many fine novels are The Man in the High Castle, Time Out of Joint, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.

Promotional

This was the only one of Philip K. Dick's mainstream novels, now recognized as among his finest, to be published during his lifetime 'Graceful, wry, vulnerable, pessimistic and wise' The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 'It is becoming increasingly clear that Dick is one of the most compelling chroniclers of life and love in 1950s California that we have' Publishers Weekly Philip K. Dick has been introduced to a huge market through the movies Blade Runner, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly 'Dick quietly produced serious fiction in a popular form and there can be no greater praise' Michael Moorcock 'One of the most original practioners writing any kind of fiction, Dick made most of the European avant-garde seem like navel-gazers in a cul-de-sac' Sunday Times

Long Description

Jack Isidore is a 'crap artist', a collector of crackpot ideas and worthless objects. His beliefs make him a man apparently unsuited for real life and so his sister, an edgy and aggressive woman, and his brother-in-law, a crass and foul-mouthed businessman, feel compelled to rescue him from it. But, observed through Jack's murderously innocent gaze, Fay and Charley Hume are seen to be just as obsessed as Jack. Their obsessions may be a little more acceptable than Jack's but they are uglier. And, in the end and thanks to Jack's intervention, theirs lead to tragedy . . .

Promotional "Headline"

'An elusive and incomparable artist' Ursula K. Le Guin

Description for Sales People

This was the only one of Philip K. Dick's mainstream novels, now recognized as among his finest, to be published during his lifetime

Details