About book Search For Philip K. Dick 1928-1982 (2009)
Shortly after Philip K. Dick's death in 1982, his ex-wife Anne Dick began comparing notes with his friends, acquaintances and exes. This book grew out of her initial attempts to reconcile the many and divergent versions of himself and his life that Philip K. Dick presented to the other people in his life. She started by putting down her own memories of their years together, along recollections from their daughter and Philip's stepdaughters (Anne's daughters from her first marriage). From there Anne did a huge amount of legwork, tracking down and interviewing relatives, friends, exes and various hangers-on. Most of this work was done in the early 1980's, documenting much valuable material about Dick before memories were clouded and lost to the ravages of time. Her italicized notes on the sources for each section are unconventional, but I found them more informative than the typical foot- or end-notes. The manuscript unfortunately went unpublished for many years, but Anne made it available to other biographers during that time. Lawrence Sutin's Divine Invasions benefited greatly from Anne's detective work. Much of what Sutin included about the early 1960's comes directly from Anne's recollections and the interviews she conducted for this book. Sutin does give Anne appropriate credit in his notes, but I felt it was worth commenting on here. Even though the book has been revised and re-issued several times, it still suffers from bad editing (whether it was ever professionally edited, I don't know). Anne's writing style comes across as amateurish, favoring short, declarative sentences without good flow. I noticed a number of misspelled names. A Mr. Ackerman is referred to as both "Gerry" and "Jerry" in the same paragraph on several occasions. At certain points, events and people are referred to without sufficient context, making some sections difficult to follow. Anne also appears to have her chronology mixed up in certain places, something an editor should have picked up. The worst example is Anne's statement that she only spoke to Phil in person on one occasion after 1971, contrary to the fact that she describes two different meetings with him during that period! I think it is fair to state that one of Anne Dick’s motivations for writing was to repair her own reputation. Despite her biases, I believe that her account adds a lot of valuable and lucid insight into Philip K. Dick’s life and relationships, especially in the most productive period in his career, the early 1960’s. For instance, Anne’s personal impressions of Philip’s mother are extremely interesting, and gave me a more nuanced picture of her than other biographies. She also has an acute insight into the real life origins of many of Dick's characters and settings.After their divorce, Philip treated Anne very shabbily, ridiculing her publicly and characterizing her as a controlling, manipulative shrew. She was often the prototype for many unpleasant female characters in his novels. At the height of Dick’s paranoia, he accused Anne of killing her first husband and attempting to murder him as well. Many of Dick’s fans seem to have taken this vitriol at face value, even though Dick’s account grew more lurid over the years and changed depending on his audience. Philip Dick could be a fanciful and charming at his best, and an outright liar and manipulator at his worst. I tend to believe Anne’s account of the marriage in general terms. I see a relationship between two people with fundamentally different perceptions of the world and people. Anne largely takes life at face value, assuming that others can mostly be trusted as well. Philip Dick believed that the truth was almost always hidden, and reality was ever changing. He seems to have hid most of himself from others, and probably assumed that Anne was hiding most of herself from him. I think he often acted from elaborate (and neurotic) hidden motives, and ascribed similar motives to those around him. Anne may have intentionally targeted his insecurities at times (and he had many), but I think in the later stages of their marriage, Philip Dick was unraveling from the inside. Anne, as a rather naïve middle class wife of the early 60’s had no idea what she was getting into. Phil’s psychiatric problems, coupled with the beginnings of a prescription drug abuse problem really seem to have steamrolled her. The shoddy psychiatric treatment that Dick received at the time only compounded matters. The respect that Anne still has for him as an author is remarkable after everything she went through with him as a person. She does not do a hatchet job here, she relates what she knows in a direct and straightforward manner. She certainly deserves our gratitude for her research and interviews, which have added a great deal to our knowledge about one of the major American science fiction authors of the previous century.
THE MAN WHOSE WIVES WERE NOT ALL EXACTLY ALIKEThis subjective view of the life of Philip K. Dick is in need of a rigorous editor. There are many typographical errors and a number or grammatical and syntactical issues. There also appears to be some confusion regarding dates. But the main shortcoming is that it suffers from a rather disjointed style: within the span of a few paragraphs the narrative lurches from one event to another at the expense of cohesion. I do not wish to dis the many people who helped Anne Dick to produce this book but, with the best will in the world, professional and impartial assistance cannot always be eschewed.Okay, despite all the above this is an interesting book. I have read many biographical pieces about Dick, as well as all the author’s own published works. I love his work and would have liked to have known him. But I’ve always had doubts about whether I would have liked him. Anne Dick portrays a deeply flawed human being. Whether Dick was mostly to blame or not for his turbulent life is a matter of opinion. There can be no doubt, however, that some of his problems were self-inflicted. What this book gives the reader is a personal take on the life of this interesting, larger-than-life character, and it’s often fascinating to learn about some of the smaller details that have been ignored by other biographers. Overall this is a worthwhile read but it could be greatly improved by a more critical editorial process.
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Maybe this book is TMI but for a Phil Dick fanatic like myself it is juicy behind the scenes real life meets sci-fi meets am I insane or are those really CIA/FBI/Aliens following me. Dick's 3rd wife Anne tells every bit of her side of the story in this frank account of their years together in Point Reyes. She follows this up with a thoroughly researched accounting of PKD's descent into after he left her and moved to the East Bay and later Southern California. The book likely enraged Dick fans around the world but it's a fascinating read. Not only because Philip K. Dick is one of the most fascinating people to have lived but also because Anne Dick manages to remind us what life was like for an American wife and woman in the Fifties and Sixties. Everything, including most people's neurotic behavior, was blamed on the mother. Heck, at one point the Point Reyes sheriff comes out to their house, talks calmly with Phil Dick, and trundles Anne off to a mental hospital for 72 hours observation! Those were the days.
—Ron Record
This was part of my holiday reading. Its an amazing book written by one of PKDs many wives. Now PKD was a troubled but gifted writer - there is no question of that - many of his bios touch on this. But this book goes much much further - it shows his loving caring side, this eloquence and mastery of the English language as well as the dark cunning and treacherous side too. The book is clearing written from Anne Dick's perspective and misses out many details other biographies capture however what they miss and this one portrays so clearly is he is human - with loves and fears and puts a personal touch to his career sometimes lost in the more accademic and cynical books written about him. A fascinating read and one made all the more important by the fact I stumbled across this book while searching a small second hand dealers bookshelves
—Andrew
