Philip K. Dick:: Remembering Firebright

by Tessa B. Dick

Philip K. Dick's VALIS trilogy and Exegesis began with a series of startling mystical experiences in February and March of 1974. Find out what happened, and how he explained it, through the eyes of his wife, who lived through it with him. This personal look at Phil's "pink light" experience and the work that it spawned covers the final ten years of his life, with some background from his earlier years. This edition is expanded- Chapter Three is new.

228 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 2009

Reviews

[Paulreynv · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would probably rate this higher just because it was interesting to so many of these personal anecdotes about PKD, but I found the author's writing terribly frustrating to read. Throughout the book she consistently provides stories and details that are irrelevant and uninteresting. It reads like a blog that has had no editing, which it probably is, as there are also frequent grammatical errors.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

For completists only. A rambling and incoherent mess. Poorly edited ( whole sections are repeated verbatim throughout ), littered with obvious spelling mistakes. Apparently Tessa Dick has a Masters in Lit and taught creative writing for 12 years - pity the alumni!

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-83...

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of Tessa Dick's reminiscences regarding her husband, science fiction author Philip K. Dick. She seems to have put down her thoughts as they occurred to her, stream-of-consciousness fashion, without much editing or re-organizing. Tessa tends to repeat the same stories with minor variations, makes random interjections and goes off on unrelated tangents at times. She relates her perspective on some well-known episodes, especially the famous "pink light" visions of 1974. What she presents are mostly the memories of what she saw and heard, without much analysis or in-depth examination.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Worth reading if you're really into PKD, but I wish Tessa B. Dick's memoir of her famous husband had been better written, edited, and proofed. It has some really good information. Tessa knew PKD for the last ten years of his life. It's interesting to compare her book with Maer Wilson's The Other Side of Philip K. Dick that remembers the same last decade of PKD's life.

Reading about PKD is like watching Rashômon. No two accounts are alike. Emmanuel Carrère's and Lawrence Sutin's PKD biographies are still the best.

[Ray Smillie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Purely for PKD completists, like myself. Some slightly annoying repetition, some wtf moments and interesting anecdotes into the state of mind of Philip K Dick, mostly in the last ten years of his life. Part of me wants The Owl in Daylight, part of me wonders how (in)coherent it would be as Tessa Dick wrote it.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Memoir of married life with PKD. Interesting an informative as an indicator of what kind of a person Dick was in later life, but shoddy writing and editing drags it down.