Read Online The Search for Philip K. Dick by Anne R. Dick - Free Book Online
Authors: Anne R. Dick
Ads: Link
writer.” When he said this he would stand and look exactly like a proletarian writer should look. Later he told me, “I really want to be a literary writer.”
“Why don’t you write what you want to, Phil?” I responded. “Successful literary writers have a lot of prestige and make a lot of money.” I saw Phil’s talent and drive and expected great things from him: fame—worldwide of course—and lots of money.
We talked about how we could manage on my small income and Phil’s meager earnings. At that time, Phil was writing two science fiction novels a year that sold for $750 to $1,000 each. Once in a while he would get $1,500. Earlier novels would sometimes be reissued and pay a second $750 or $1,000. Tiny sums came in from foreign rights. I remember how pleased Phil was when the Japanese edition of
Eye in the Sky
came in the mail. He got $30 for it. It was an attractive, small, shiny white book and read from back to front. I was to receive $10,000 from my late husband’s estate and the girls would inherit an additional $10,000. Phil thought we could make this money last for the next twenty years. I was dubious.
I tended to worry about money, a trait I inherited from my mother. When I was growing up during the Great Depression we lived with Oriental rugs, mahogany furniture, and old silver and china that had survived from better days. My mother worried about money and feared a further reduction in status. She seemed to think that we were imminently going to a poorhouse just like those in Dickens’s novels.
Phil told me, “It takes twenty to thirty years to succeed as a literary writer.” He was willing to make this long-term effort. I thought his attitude was terrific. However, the word
budget
wasn’t one I understood.
I wanted to invest the money I had inherited in rental property and persuaded Phil to look at apartment buildings in lower Marin County. We looked at an eighteen-unit apartment complex in Mill Valley that we could have bought for $20,000 down (the building is worth many tens of millions of dollars now), but Phil didn’t want to be a landlord. The capital I’d inherited was used for living expenses over the next two years, and we were right back where we had started from.
To work out Phil’s writing plan, we agreed that while Phil wrote I would run the house and keep up with my outside activities, the Bluebird troop, the PTA, the school library, and a political group that was trying to get a new high school located nearer the center of population rather than in the middle of a faraway cow pasture. I would work on my sculpture when I was at home. Every day I drove carloads of children to lessons, clubs, and other after-school activities. In summer, I daily drove the children and their friends to Shell Beach—where all the mothers gossiped with each other and the children played together and swam. During August, Red Cross swimming lessons were held there. My daughters attended and one year I helped the instructors teach in the very cold water while the dense August fog swirled around us.
One afternoon not long after the discussion about Phil’s career, we were lying on the bed in the study, our arms around each other. We had just made love and I was feeling happy and relaxed. Phil started laughing and laughing. He said, “I have a great idea for a novel. It’s about this guy, Jack Isidore. I’m naming him after an early encyclopedist, Isidore of Seville, who collected weird bits of knowledge. The novel will be in the first person. The opening line Jack Isidore says is, ‘Let me tell you about myself. The first thing is: I’m a pathological liar.’” (In the published version it is, “I am made out of water.”) And Phil laughed and laughed some more. For some unknown reason I felt a little chill of unease, but nevertheless I smiled encouragingly. Phil began working on this novel,
Confessions of a Crap Artist
, during the honeymoon period of our relationship.
Two
HONEYMOON FOR
“Why don’t you write what you want to, Phil?” I responded. “Successful literary writers have a lot of prestige and make a lot of money.” I saw Phil’s talent and drive and expected great things from him: fame—worldwide of course—and lots of money.
We talked about how we could manage on my small income and Phil’s meager earnings. At that time, Phil was writing two science fiction novels a year that sold for $750 to $1,000 each. Once in a while he would get $1,500. Earlier novels would sometimes be reissued and pay a second $750 or $1,000. Tiny sums came in from foreign rights. I remember how pleased Phil was when the Japanese edition of
Eye in the Sky
came in the mail. He got $30 for it. It was an attractive, small, shiny white book and read from back to front. I was to receive $10,000 from my late husband’s estate and the girls would inherit an additional $10,000. Phil thought we could make this money last for the next twenty years. I was dubious.
I tended to worry about money, a trait I inherited from my mother. When I was growing up during the Great Depression we lived with Oriental rugs, mahogany furniture, and old silver and china that had survived from better days. My mother worried about money and feared a further reduction in status. She seemed to think that we were imminently going to a poorhouse just like those in Dickens’s novels.
Phil told me, “It takes twenty to thirty years to succeed as a literary writer.” He was willing to make this long-term effort. I thought his attitude was terrific. However, the word
budget
wasn’t one I understood.
I wanted to invest the money I had inherited in rental property and persuaded Phil to look at apartment buildings in lower Marin County. We looked at an eighteen-unit apartment complex in Mill Valley that we could have bought for $20,000 down (the building is worth many tens of millions of dollars now), but Phil didn’t want to be a landlord. The capital I’d inherited was used for living expenses over the next two years, and we were right back where we had started from.
To work out Phil’s writing plan, we agreed that while Phil wrote I would run the house and keep up with my outside activities, the Bluebird troop, the PTA, the school library, and a political group that was trying to get a new high school located nearer the center of population rather than in the middle of a faraway cow pasture. I would work on my sculpture when I was at home. Every day I drove carloads of children to lessons, clubs, and other after-school activities. In summer, I daily drove the children and their friends to Shell Beach—where all the mothers gossiped with each other and the children played together and swam. During August, Red Cross swimming lessons were held there. My daughters attended and one year I helped the instructors teach in the very cold water while the dense August fog swirled around us.
One afternoon not long after the discussion about Phil’s career, we were lying on the bed in the study, our arms around each other. We had just made love and I was feeling happy and relaxed. Phil started laughing and laughing. He said, “I have a great idea for a novel. It’s about this guy, Jack Isidore. I’m naming him after an early encyclopedist, Isidore of Seville, who collected weird bits of knowledge. The novel will be in the first person. The opening line Jack Isidore says is, ‘Let me tell you about myself. The first thing is: I’m a pathological liar.’” (In the published version it is, “I am made out of water.”) And Phil laughed and laughed some more. For some unknown reason I felt a little chill of unease, but nevertheless I smiled encouragingly. Phil began working on this novel,
Confessions of a Crap Artist
, during the honeymoon period of our relationship.
Two
HONEYMOON FOR
Similar Books
