Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

by Philip K. Dick

In a near-future dystopian America (the impossibly far-flung year of 1988!) ruled by a brutal police network, civil liberties have collapsed, prisoners go to forced labor camps, students are criminals and colleges besieged, minorities have been all but exterminated, and identification is everything. (Sounds sadly familiar, actually.) The story follows Jason Taverner, a famous and beloved TV talk show host and singer. After an attack by a disgruntled ex, he wakes up to find that no one knows who he is. He has no ID, his show never aired, he doesn't exist in the files, and not even his friends remember him. Taverner goes underground to piece together what's happened, and the novel spins out into a surreal, psychological journey involving shifting realities, drug-induced revelations, strange coincidences, and the growing suspicion that something metaphysical is at play.

This is familiar ground for PKD in a few ways: the paranoiac who happens to be correct about his paranoia, the drug use, the uneasy sense of being unmoored from reality, the psycho-babble exposition, the futuristic gadgets side by side with vinyl LPs and phone booths. The book's main hook, the terror of waking up in a universe where one doesn't exist, is intriguing. And there's a lot of tense exploration of identity and power. You can feel Dick’s fear of authoritarianism baked into every scene, especially the ones involving the brutal, manipulative cops. But he also can write with real emotional vulnerability. There are sections about grief and loss that don't really jibe with the novel's whole vibe, but are weirdly tender and you get the sense that Dick is grappling with what it means to be known, to be loved, to exist at all. As with a lot of Dick's work, it gets messy. The plot spirals and loses momentum, and there are strange narrative turns that distract from the overall story arc. It's not exactly an enduring SF classic, but it's not a self-indulgent oddity either, which some Dick stories are. It's emotionally resonant and succeeds at creating a suspenseful, tense world ruled by fear of authority. Definitely worth reading, especially if you're into cerebral, reality-questioning science fiction; just be prepared for some druggy meandering.  

four stars