Fractured realities. Lost identities. Handsome show business figures. A man who doesn't exist. Confusion.
What would it be like to wake up and have nobody know who you are? To have your entire history erased, so that even those nearest and dearest to you wouldn't know you from a stranger on the street?
In Flow my Tears, The Policeman Said, which is a jarring, long title for a book, this is exactly what Philip K Dick explores. Set in a time of dystopia (like much Speculative Fiction) the novel follows Jason Taverner - a singer with a TV show that beams his image and voice to millions every week. Until he wakes up one day, after an incident and no one knows who the hell he is.
What strikes me so very much about Philip K Dick's writing, in this book, and in Ubik, which I read last year, is just how strong and believable every single line of dialogue is. He has a way with words, and an absolutely relentless pace at pushing the story forward through dialogue between characters.
As serious the themes of lost identity and an erased past may be, the dialogue even has the ability to be genuinely funny, which is of course, a strange thing to say, given that my experience with Dick's work was for too many years only his seminal text Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Over the last 18 months, I've been addressing that - slowly, by branching out into his other work, and I will, hell or high water, read his entire career, or die trying.
A man that wrote so feverishly crafts another story here that builds upon his common place themes of "What is truly real", "What really is reality?" and other such questions that put human characters into vulnerable, terrifying places that balance delicately on the tightrope, below which lies a pit of unfathomable insanity and madness.
If not these things, then a deep sadness. There are many somber exchanges in Flow my Tears, The Policeman Said, be they between Taverner and strangers who become friends along the way. Then there is the ever present "state-antagonist", carrying names that do not matter. To them, Taverner is simply a threat for those who are out to "get him", to restore order, gesticulate at an easy scapegoat, enact vengeance upon the fact that a man who suddenly doesn't exist, and seems to have never existed, must have no one to stand up for him and say "no, he's good."
But not every protagonist is good, and Taverner is no exception. His place of privilege is bestowed upon him via genetic superiority, borderline sociopathy, and a confidence that is unending and elite.
Throughout the twists and turns of the plot, Dick keeps enabling puns like "keeps you up at night", because you simply just must continue reading until the inevitable climax.
It all culminates in a mind blowing ending to a book with a title that says a lot, but doesn't spoil the story. The last section of the book is worth admiring multiple times. Highly recommend.