Maer Wilson - The Other Side of Philip K. Dick

I found this book engrossing and authenticatruthful and serious account of the last part of Phil Dicks lifeby someone who was a fundamental part of it and who has the skillto write about it. There is evident love and friendship in thisbook, but also honesty. This was the Phil Dick I knew. James P.Blaylock, World Fantasy Award-Winning Author

As a literary figure, Philip K. Dick ispopularly perceived as a crazed, drug-addled mystic with a sinisterThird Eye. Nothing could be further from the truththe Phil I knewwas a warm, humane, very funny man. Maer Wilson understands thesetruths far better than I, and The Other Side of Philip K.Dick casts a welcome shaft of daylight upon the real PKD, asopposed to the dark, distorted caricature Dick has become. Paul M.Sammon, Author of Future Noir: The Making of BladeRunner

The strongest piece of writing Ive read inyears. Wilsons pacing is perfection. The Other Side of PhilipK. Dick is filled with laughter and the kind of love only truefriends can share. Even if, for some reason, youve never heard ofPhilip K. Dick, you will fall in love with him and Wilson. Theending had me crying, like end of the Notebook crying. Utterperfection. M. Joseph Murphy, Author of the Activation series

There are many tales of epic friendships,but there is one huge difference here: The Other Side of PhilipK. Dick is real. Wilsons prose gives us an inside view intotwo minds, a genius and a young girl. Through her eyes I am leftwith one thoughtthis is a man I wish I had known. Danielle DeVor,author of the Marker Chronicles.

Frank and revealing. One part faithfulmemoir, one part a wonderful evocation of Phils final 10 years.Writing with crisp clarity, Maers humorous anecdotes wonderfullyevoke both the times and the man. Her conversational prose sparkleswith truth and winning story-telling. Best of all, this warmtribute replaces the oft-told myths about Phil with unique insightsinto his caring, compassionate and generous nature. DanielGilbertson, Friend of PKD

As a fan of Dicks fiction, I was engrossedby these amusing, insightful, and poignant reminiscences of thelast ten years of his life. Wilson evokes a human portrait of awarm, funny, unassuming man who was a good friend to a youngstudent. This memoir is well-written and heart-felt. It illustratesnot only the private world of a great writer but what it was liketo be young in the seventies in California. Carol Holland March,Author of The Dreamwalkers of Larreta

This is a work of non-fiction.

Some names and identifying details have beenchanged.

Copyright Maer Wilson 2016. All rightsreserved.

First Edition

Editor: Jen Ryan, Imagine ThatEditing

Cover Art: MJoseph Murphy

Photographs provided by KimGottlieb-Walker of Large DoorProductions , Merry Lou & PeteStaylor, William J. Durkin, and Maer Wilson.

Author Photo by Bob Flaherty

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For Phil

and

Merry Lou (Malone) Staylor, Tim and SerenaPowers, and Joel Stein.

It was a joy to have the old gang backtogether again, even if it was only in my mind.

A biography can give you the outlines of itssubject, but cant really animate it; the difference is like thedifference between a still photograph and video. Some peopleespecially cant be comprehended very well at all by the stillphotoyou get little more than a caricature. To understand them,you need to know them as they moved and talked and laughed.

But for that you need to borrow theindividual viewpoint and perspective of another person, someone whoknew the subject. And that means youll get to know that otherperson too.

Mary Wilson was a good friend to Philip K.Dick for the last ten years of his life. Every friendship is aunique little world-of-two, and were fortunate that she hasilluminated for us the one she shared with Dickshe was nineteenwhen they met, and he was forty-three, but she was a veryclear-eyed teenager, and he wasnt as worldly as his age mightsuggest. And their friendship wasnt polarized with any romanticattachment; her account here is objective.

Those last ten years were a distinct changefrom Dicks life before 1972. Many elements of his life before thenhad been chaotic and alarming: drugs, violence and flight from hisBay area home, culminating in an attempted suicide in Canada. Hislife in the southern California college town of Fullerton, fromearly 1972 until his death, was by contrast a period of comparativerelaxation and peace. He often had little or no money, but he nolonger had cause to fear for his very life. And though here-established contact with some old friends like Norman Spinrad inLos Angeles, his day-to-day companions now were mostly collegestudents.

Dick wrote five novels during this decade,and married for the fifth and final time. He still wrote books atthe frenetic pace he had adopted in the 1960sas I recall, he wroteValis in twelve daysbut he took more time between them.Theyre more thoughtful books, and largely autobiographical,looking back on his life. In A Scanner Darkly he comes toterms with his nightmarish last days in northern California,Valis accurately recounts much of his life after his pinklight experience in 1974, and The Transmigration of TimothyArcher is, among other things, a reflection on his friendshipwith Bishop James Pike of San Francisco, and is the only novel inwhich Dick undertook to have a woman protagonist.

I remember a lot of the incidents Marydescribes -- our recollections differ only at one or two peripheralpointsand several I didnt recall until she reminded me of them inthis book. Its fascinating for me to see these things from herperspective, and to see too the events and conversations I wasntaround forI find myself meeting again the Mary Wilson and PhilDick that I knew thirty-five and forty years ago.

So I spent all day yesterday reading yourbook and not reading student papers. If my students complain, Imblaming you. Finished it this morning. You really nailed it in theendserious, informative, and touching all in one. Im probably notthe best reader for a couple of reasons. You and I agree about thesort of person Phil was and was not. You did a great job ofpresentingthe... eccentricities... withoutmaking them sound over the top. Phil was exactly the way youportrayed him. Heaps of the stories you tell were new to me,although some Id heard about from Tim, so I felt like I wasgetting to relive old times vicariously. Throughout I thought,yeah, thats the Phil I knew. I particularly enjoyed the storiesabout Phil asking you to break off relationships for him.Hilarious. That, of course, was something I hadnt heard of. Itreally rang true. Id met Karen a couple of times, but wasnt quitesure whether Phil had fallen for her, thought he had fallen forher, thought she had fallen for him, etc. His love life didnt makeany sense to me, and you caught all of that perfectly. Its hard tobelieve that he was running scenarios for his fiction, but on theother hand a heap of it did end up in his fiction. Same with thewild stories. I recently wrote a piece about the night I met Phil(75?). He managed to convince Tim and I that there was acenturies-old plot to murder people who knew a certain dreadsecret. (Theyd taken out Jesus and Ambrose Bierce, among others.)The KGB was involved. Creeped both of us out entirely. The next dayTim called Phil and said something about how astonishing the wholething was, and Phil burst into laughter and said, I really had youtwo going. I found that hilarious, but I was moderately sure thatPhil believed in some part of the story. The April Firsteverything changes fear is something he told Viki. She waspositive that he believed it. I love the idea that the Europe planswere going forward as a backup plan. Typical Phil. That sort ofthing brought up, occasionally, my wondering who is Phil Dickactually. Like you, I realized quickly that I didnt give a damn.He was a generous friend to Viki and me and to our son John afterhe got to the walking around stage and we hauled him along toPhils apartment at Phils request. Anyway, thanks for filling in alot of blanks for me. So... heres what Ithink: this is a true-to-life bioa glimpse at the real Phil Dick.Its solidly written. In fact, Ive got nothing to say about thewriting except that I admire the clarity of the whole thing. Itlends the book a sort of fundamental accuracy thats sometimesmissing or sketchy in other books about Phil. So Im a fan of thisbook. It could be that my positive reaction is motivated bysentimental feelings for Phil and a nostalgia for those times. Inother words, I probably know too much and pre-possessed to beenthusiastic, to be an objective reader. So whats next? What areyou going to do with it?