This is a biography of the novelist, Philip K. Dick, who was born into a repressed and unhappy family. From early childhood he showed extraordinary mental aptitude offset by emotional instability. He began writing stories for pulp magazines at an early age, and through most of his life turned out stories and novels at speed to support himself as an author. This book shows a generous but insecure man, troubled by the turbulence of his times and by his own difficult marriages, and driven to attempted suicide and near-insanity by his ceaseless quest to find meaning in the universe.