The 1st bk I read by Dick was "A Scanner Darkly". I wasn't that impressed. Then I read something else, maybe around 1984, & proceeded to read a bk or 2 a wk by him 'til I cdn't find anymore. This is one of the non-SF straight novels that he cdn't get published in his lifetime. The fools. ( )

Phil wrote some shoddy books early in his career but good god does this one take the cake. Want to spend 300 pages with unlikeable characters that don't act like "normal" people would? Want to spend that time with characters who constantly flip between extreme emotions without anything really happening? Tedious inner monologues and feats of "logic" that has people doing mental gymnastics that would put the most ardent of apologists to shame. Characters acting like spoiled children. Four main characters and all of them were so unsympathetic that it leaves me thinking it had to be intentional, but then you ask, why spend your time with such people? Why indeed.
It might have been a big mistake to read PKD in chronilogical order, as he wrote his books, because while I was aware, that the start will be rough, I had such high hopes for his later stuff that I was not prepared to get such tedious and just generally bad writing at the start.
This has to be a book for fans only, seeing how many PKD readers give this a high rating. Maybe one day I will look back on it with fond feelings, at the moment I'm just disappointed.

*spoiler*
Man drinks. Man drives his car. Man gets caught by the police and loses licence. Man never takes responsibility. Man loses job because of hissy fit. Man blames wife for everything wrong in his life. Man rapes wife and gets her pregnant. Man physically abuses wife for thinking about abortion. Man says he loves wife, says he hates her, then back to loving her and then threatens to kill her. In the end, man gets what he wants and sits on his high horse. No lessons learned, no knowledge gained. A fruitless effort, a wasted life.
Neither of the men in this book ever accepted any responsibility and always blamed others while both of the women blamed themselves for everything that was wrong. The end. ( )

By far the least of all the PKD books I've read. There were a few good Dickian moments, but I can see why it remained unpublished for so long. ( )