The Search for Philip K. Dick (44 page)

Anne was born in West Englewood, New Jersey, in 1927. After moving to St. Louis, she attended the Principia secondary school and graduated from Washington University in 1947. After the death of her first husband, poet Richard Rubenstein, she studied metal sculpture with Harry Crotty at College of Marin and later based her jewelry designs on the welded sculpture techniques she had learned there. Her bronze and silver jewelry has been sold in museum stores and galleries throughout the United States and abroad. Retired from the jewelry business after forty-seven years, she continues to write novels and poetry. She still lives in the same house where she lived with Philip K. Dick and raised her four daughters.

“Dear Anne, I just finished reading your biography of Phil, and I must say I am impressed. Besides being a remarkably accurate and lifelike picture of the man, it is also a rattling good tale, like a real-life detective story….”

—Ray Nelson

“Anne’s detailed account of her years with Philip K. Dick is a must-read for anyone discovering the autobiographical elements in his writing. No other biography gives the reader as strong a sense of how he crafted his fiction, where he got his characters, and what made him tick. Parts of Anne’s memoir are instantly recognizable to PKD’s readers as they describe the inspiration for many of his most bizarre fictional scenes.”

—David Gill, San Francisco State University; The Total Dick-Head blog

“The secret of Phil Dick’s greatness, as with so many other great men, is his… third wife, Anne. You can see her influence in the development of his novels, their increasing awareness of the human/family/sexual element. Most SF writers simply didn’t pay attention to such things, which are the entire concern of mainstream fiction. Dick was almost alone among the SF writers of his day in trying to write mainstream novels himself. And what is their constant theme? His battles with, and bafflement by, and love of Anne, the Other who never left his thoughts….”

—Thomas M. Disch, author of
Camp Concentration

“[Search for Philip K. Dick]
shows that if we choose to, we can see through the flaws, and find the shining divinity that is there. Even in his worst times in Santa Venetia, he was still trying to help people.”

—Laurene Jensen

“I found the manuscript utterly engrossing on two levels: first, as a sympathetic yet clear-eyed study in the round of an extraordinary personality, and second, as a source of innumerable clues about PKD’s work. I consider it prime source material for anyone interesting in PKD the man or the writings of PKD. I not only understand him better now, but have fresh insights into several of the novels and short stories….”

—Meritt Abrash, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

“… an amazingly thorough job, even though … dealing at times with people who could have been hostile. And then [Anne Dick] wrote the whole complicated story in clear, fast-moving, and entertaining prose.”

—Floyd M. Shumway, Yale University

“In all the critical literature-review-type books, yours comes as a breath of fresh air.”

—Perry Kinman “Razzelweave,” PKD zine, Japan