Quarter of a century after his death, Philip K. Dick’s reputation and status is beginning to transcend mere founding fatherhood of modern science fiction and drift towards a more general greatness within the broader pastures of modern American literature.

Dick was exasperated about the perceived limitations of his genre while he was alive but before his untimely death in 1982 he had received industry acclaim for "The Man in the High Castle" in the sixties, but otherwise had garnered only cult following. Broader recognition beckoned - Ridley Scott’s "Blade Runner", based on Dick’s altogether more complex "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" was in post-production. Fame and fortune beckoned, but by this stage, as Emmanuel Carrere makes plain, even if he had not suffered massive stroke, Philip K Dick was in no state, mental or physical, to enjoy or capitalise on it.

That Dick was a troubled soul is relatively well known, but Carrere’s biography explores and extrapolates Dick’s unstable mental state into his literature and life choices, which became increasingly bizarre as the Seventies wore on. Carrere sources Dick’s discord in the death in infancy of his twin sister Jane, and was compounded by Dick’s hypochondria – and has produced an effervescent and fascinating portrait. Carrere, perhaps by taking some licence, gives us a close and personal view into his subject’s unusually complex psyche which is rare in a contemporary biography (the only other comparable example I can recall is the Gilmans’ excellent "Alias David Bowie"). Because of Carrere’s aproach, Philip K. Dick is made very real on the page.

Some will complain that Carerre’s approach crosses a sacred line into fictionalising, but philosophically I don’t have a problem with that (I’m not sure there even is such a line in fact): particularly since Philip K Dick is long dead, outside the content of his oeuvre we don't have any “facts” against which Carrere’s story can be measured – which will give pause in some quarters – but it doesn’t feel to me that Carrere has breached the poetic licence he undoubtedly as as a biographer. That the complaints, such as they are, have mostly been “in principle” and not on substance seems to confirm that. These are fair fictionalisations, that is, and they paint a vibrant and fascinating picture of the man and an excellent introduction to his major works which are analysed and contextualised in a good amount of detail.

The implication, never actually made, is that Dick’s hypochondria transcended simple pharmaceutical dependence and evolved into paranoia and ultimately genuine psychiatric illness. One might wonder what effect the cinematic success of Blade Runner and the many subsequent Dick dramatisations might have had on his mental state and subsequent writing career, but not for long: on Carrere’s account he was a burnt-out husk by the end so, most likely, none.

Carrere is a novelist himself, and he writes well – as, it should be said, does his translator. This didn’t feel at all like a translated book.

Well recommended. ( )

For lovers of everything from Dick's pen - from Valis to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - this deeply compassionate portrayal of 'Horselover Fat' is a must in understanding Dick's themes, his character, his obsessions, intellectual touchstones, and his later mystical bent. Carrere does not shy away from the sometimes very dark aspects of Dick's life but instead deftly and with a remarkably light touch (given the subject matter) delves into and brings to light artefacts from the different layers of Dick's personality for open observation in clear, undimmed light. ( )

A very interesting read, actually... he was quite insane in a bizarrely religious way towards the end. I enjoyed it, but he's not a very likeable person from what I could tell. ( )

I recently finished "I am Alive and You Are Dead" by Emanuelle Carrère, which is an astounding biography of Philip K. Dick. It's the kind of view of the author that changes your understanding of their work in retrospect, and certainly set me up for an interesting read as I now make my way through "Humpty Dumpty in Oakland", one of Dick's very early mainstream novels, which is only now making its way into the popular press. A separate review of "Humpty Dumpty" will follow in a few days.

In addition to presenting a chronology of facts and events from Dick's life, "I am Alive" constantly points out parallels between Philip K. Dick and the worlds he created in his mainstream and science fiction novels. Some of these connections are easy to make out, as it is not hard to imagine whole portions of a book like "A Scanner Darkly" coming from Dick's experiences in 60s and 70s California. Other connections are more complex and even astonishing, and difficult to describe if you aren't already familiar with Dick's work in depth. Without laboring the point and hence spoiling countless novels, let me simply say that the line between Dick's life and his work was a lot blurrier than one would think, given the fantastic nature of much of his work.

The material is well researched, and is seamlessly crafted into a detailed chronology that manages to inform and entertain at the same time. I'm reminded somewhat of "U and I" by Nicholson Baker, another work in which an author who is entertaining in his own right writes about an author he enjoys. Just as Baker recalled Updike as a part of his own life, it is clear that Carrère enjoys and remembers Dick's works as part of his life. Unlike "U and I", only occasionally does Carrère insert asides from his own life into the work, where the title for "U and I" might as well have been printed in exaggerated perspective with the letter "u" an inch high and the letter "I" a foot high. It is a skilled biographer who can hide enough traces of themselves to allow the reader to appreciate their subject in depth while leaving enough traces of themselves that we want to see more of their style. I look forward to reading other translations of Carrère's work. ( )

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.

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. ( )