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"A funny, horribly accurate portrait of a life in California in the Fifties."—Rolling Stone
Jack Isidore doesn't see the world like most people. According to his brother-in-law Charlie, he’s a crap artist, obsessed with his own bizarre theories and ideas, which he fanatically records in his many notebooks. He is so grossly unequipped for real life that his sister and brother-in-law feel compelled to rescue him from it. But while Fay and Charlie Hume put on a happy face for the world, they prove to be just as sealed off from reality, in thrall to obsessions that are slightly more acceptable than Jack's but a great deal uglier. Their constant fighting and betrayals threaten their own marriage and the relationships of everyone around them. When they bring Jack into their home, he finds himself in the middle of a maelstrom of suburban angst from which he might not be able to escape.
Confessions of a Crap Artist is one of Philip K. Dick's most accomplished novels, and the only non–science fiction novel published in his lifetime.
To Jack, the socially autistic "crap artist" of this devastating domestic tragicomedy set in Northern California in the 1950s, the Earth is hollow and sunlight has weight. But as seen by this innocent, Jack's sister and brother-in-law are just as sealed off from reality--and far more destructive in their obsessions.
Many of Philip K. Dick's books are very well known - several having been made into successful Hollywood movies - but I've often been confused as to why this isn't among them.<BR/><BR/>Unlike most of his work, it's not science fiction. It takes place mostly in Marin County, California in the late 1950's and it's basically an intense character study of three fairly eccentric people in a family, following a rather twisted, dark, but all-too-plausible plot. <BR/><BR/>The quality of the writing and the depth of character here is in my opinion superior to a lot of Dick's other work. Of special note, however, is the that it seems to me that the character most central to the narrative - Jack Isidore - is Dick's portrayal of himself through fear - that is, Jack Isidore isn't meant to be him, nor necessarily related to how he saw himself on a daily basis, but is in some way a version of himself that he's afraid of being or that he was afraid that - at some points - he actually was. <BR/><BR/>And even if I'm off the mark in that regard, Isidore is still a very interesting, real, and honest examination of some of the more unpleasant aspects of the "nerd" type so commonly associate with sci-fi. And even though the novel itself is far from science fiction, an examination of this type of character coming from one of the genre's modern masters is a valuable read.
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Overview
"A funny, horribly accurate portrait of a life in California in the Fifties."—Rolling Stone
Jack Isidore doesn't see the world like most people. According to his brother-in-law Charlie, he’s a crap artist, obsessed with his own bizarre theories and ideas, which he fanatically records in his many notebooks. He is so grossly unequipped for real life that his sister and brother-in-law feel compelled to rescue him from it. But while Fay and Charlie Hume put on a happy face for the ...