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Voices From The Street by Philip K. Dick
01/05/2008 . Source: Sue Davies 
pub: TOR/Forge. 304 page enlarged paperback. Price: $14.95 (US), $17.25 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-7653-1821-3. Buy Voices From The Street in the USA - or Buy Voices From The Street in the UK  check out website: www.tor-forge.com
Phil K. Dick is remembered for being a visionary Science Fiction writer and the truth seems to be that the medium chose and stole him from the rest of fiction readers. He couldn't get his fiction published without jet packs and trips to Mars. Labelled and pigeon-holed, he had to stuff his considerable ideas into the format. This rare 'straight' fiction novel is every bit as compelling as the best of his SF without a rocket in sight.
An ordinary radio-electronic salesman, Stuart Hadley, is trapped by his life. His marriage makes him feel claustrophobic. He longs to break out and be somebody but is a dreamer, filled with fear and loathing for his life and himself. As he struggles with each decision, we experience his painful movements directly and as the novel moves to its inevitable climax of violence, we are complicit in his actions.
Phil K. Dick uses many of the themes he was so obsessed with in his SF novels and they seem to sit just as well within this straight format. He pours his soul into each passage of the book. It is a painful read in some ways as Stuart is an unlikeable, unlovable character who is totally at odds with the society he has to live in. Stuart Hadley has no redeeming features and his own internal assessments of his family and friends are disquieting. Its shocking it could not get published in his lifetime but not surprising because of its bleak outlook. His view of the American dream life, capitalism and bourgeois existence is a damming indictment on human existence.
I think this book is a deep psychological insight into a fractured and distorted man who chooses violence as a cathartic episode. Once you have read it, you will be drawn to re-read as the build up is as important as the final few scenes and those final few chapters have you racing to the finish as you are desperate for some kind of explanation and closure. It is a raw and bruising experience with powerfully phrased passages that have a sense of immediacy. The dialogue and descriptions are well structured and there is a strong sense of the writer but also of the characters that live in his head. They leap off the page and become real for the time that we spend in the book.
I would definitely recommend this as an insight into the mind and also as representative of the time when it was written during the Korean War when it was entirely possible that the world would be a pile of rubble by tomorrow morning.
Sue Davies
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