I Am Alive and You are Dead: A Journey Into the Mind of Philip K. Dick

I Am Alive and You are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick, Emanuel Carrere, Picador, 2004

This book is not just a biography of Philip K. Dick, famous science fiction writer; the movies "Blade Runner", "Total Recall" and "Minority Report" are based on his stories. It is also an attempt to find out what made him tick, to get inside his mind. And that is a strange place to be.

Dick was born in 1928, near Berkeley, California, half of a set of twins. Evidently, his mother knew little or nothing about child rearing, because Jane, his twin, died at 6 weeks of age, possibly of starvation. Her death affected Dick for his entire life.

He was a big lover of classical music, and a voracious reader, especially of psychology, philosophy, and later in his life, religion. Dick never achieved his dream of becoming a "serious" novelist, though not for lack of effort. Writing science fiction simply paid the bills, until he became successful at it.

His first wife was a Communist sympathizer (having an FBI file in 1950s Berkeley was practically a badge of honor), he got his second wife sent to a mental hospital, and his third wife left him, and took their young daughter, when he objected to her getting a job outside the home. Dick had a fear of being alone. Dick was a paranoid agoraphobic who was subject to panic attacks. He was, shall we say, well acquainted with the world of prescription drugs, taking them for all sorts of physical and mental ailments. On speed, he could write a novel in two weeks, without sleeping, though he knew that he would physically pay for it later. In later years, he was perceived as some sort of LSD guru, even though he took it only once. There were a couple of stints in drug rehab.

<p>As a youngster, during one of his rare trips to a movie theater, Dick was suddenly convinced that nothing existed outside the theater. The four walls and the pictures on the screen were the sum total of reality. Another time, he wondered if he was really alive, or if he was simply an android who was programmed with false memories so that he would think that he was alive. In later years, Dick turned a couple of innocent fan letters from Eastern Europe into a plot to get him behind the Iron Curtain, and keep him there.

Anyone who has ever read one of Dick's novels, or seen one of the movies based on his stories, needs to read this book. For those not familiar with Philip Dick, read this as a look into the mind of a very strange person.