This isn't real?

Even with the rise of Dick’s reputation during the ‘80s, his work could be hard to find, even in California. “In my world,” recalls daughter Isa Dick Hackett, “they never had the books in the libraries. Never, ever had the books in the bookstores. Anytime I was anywhere, I’d go to the bookstore and see if they had any of my dad’s books. And never! Never! And I’d ask the clerks, hoping for some validation. ‘Dick? Who?’”

Going from blank stares from clerks and librarians to seeing her dad become one of the best-regarded writers of his day, admired by Hollywood and the literati, makes Hackett wonder what her father would make of it. The half a dozen or so film projects in the works include “Flow My Tears” and “Ubik,” perhaps his most philosophically realized novel. Dick’s early realist novels -- writer Jonathan Lethem describes then as living somewhere between Richard Yates and Charles Willeford -- are being published after nearly a quarter-century out of print. “Puttering About in a Small Land,” set in L.A. and Ojai, was just reissued by Tor.

“He would either be laughing hysterically or just saying, ‘This isn’t real,’” Hackett says. “’This is just a figment of my imagination.’ And he’d be totally paranoid about it: ‘Something is wrong here.’ I just shake my head and say, ‘Dad, this is so amazing. I wish you could have had a glimpse of this.’ He would love to hear that other creative minds were sparked by what he wrote.”

-- REPORTER - Scott Timberg,

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/02/philip-k-dicks-legacy-in-the-maze-of-death.html