In Milton Lumky Territory (GollanczF.) [Paperback]

Philip K Dick (Author)

Book Description

Series: GollanczF. | Publication Date: June 9, 2005

Bruce Stevens is a young buyer for a big discount house when he meets the recently divorced Susan Faine. She suggests that he might like to manage her ailing typewriter store and he leaps at the suggestion. Then he realizes that Susan was his teacher when he was in fifth grade. In spite of that, they are married within days. And then the odd compulsions and instabilities start to interfere with their plans. Milton Lumky, the paper salesman in whose area they live, is uneasy about their future ...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

First published in 1985 by a small press, this realist (read: not sci-fi) early novel from dystopian master Dick (1928–1982) bears the following introductory author's note: This is actually a very funny book, and a good one, too, in that the funny things that happen happen to real people who come alive. The ending is a happy one. What more can an author say? What more can he give? To which one answers indeed, and quickly turns to the adventures of protagonist Bruce Stevens as he drives into the Pacific Northwest—the sales territory of a Willy Lomanesque man named Milton Lumky—looking for wholesale typewriters. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Praise for In Milton Lumky Territory:

"Beautifully drawn and poignantly persuasive."
--New York Magazine

"It's easy to sense . . . Dick's unmistakable concern for his poor, clumsy characters, who try their best to understand the implications of their actions, who never mean to hurt anyone, even when they are engaged in deceit, and who live their lives as pawns in worlds they never made.  Rather than ridiculing or even patronizing these characters, Dick seems to envy them. . . ."
--Locus

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Gollancz (June 9, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0575074655
• ISBN-13: 978-0575074651
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.7 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,982,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth Your Time, October 10, 2003

By 

Steve West (Adelaide, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Milton Lumky Territory (Hardcover)

I'd advise only reading this if you're like me, you enjoy Philip K. Dick's writing, you've read a fair few of his books including 'Confessions of a Crap Artist', and you hope to read all his works (and steer clear of stuff like 'The Ganymede Takeover').
'In Milton Lumky Territory' may not be as exciting and quirky a read as 'Confessions of a Crap Artist' but it is a good read nonetheless and it's a shame that this was languishing as a manuscript on one of Dick's bookshelves until after his death.
It's set in the 50's, it has a purposeful main character in his mid-twenties who has that same horrible awareness of bad interpersonal situations that can be found in 'Confessions of a Crap Artist'. It's a good quality novel that you'll look back on and like.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Attention must be paid, June 7, 2004

By 

Doug Mackey (Fairfield, IA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Milton Lumky Territory (Hardcover)

This realist novel, written in 1958 and not published till 1985, is a concise, ironic story, set in Idaho, of the marriage of Bruce, a young man, to Susan, his former fifth grade teacher, and his devastating experiences in trying to run her business. Milton Lumky, a dumpy, red-faced salesman with a penchant for outrageous remarks, is not the main character in the novel, but he has center stage whenever he is on. Dick wrote In Milton Lumky Territory under the influence of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Both works deal with the tragedy of the common man, making the point, as Dick quoted in an interview, that "attention must be paid to this man." Like Willy Loman, Milton Lumky is a man of essential goodness who has been beaten down by what he has come to see as the degrading nature of his job. His Idaho is a provincial world of small towns, small minds, and a certain unrelieved nastiness. The only reprieve from the dreariness of this barren land and culture is to be found in the felicities of the heart, which Bruce and Susan take refuge in at the end when they move out of Milton Lumky territory.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please believe me Lord Wittgenstein, March 4, 2011

By 

Cassandra - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Milton Lumky Territory (Hardcover)

First read all Dick's science fiction starting with Ubiq and then Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Then read his many post-death published works (huh?- how did that happen?). Then read In Milton Lumky Terrritory and realize that it was all there at the beginning but you couldn't have noticed it then. The difficulty, the humor, the unknowability- the real conflated with the unreal and surreal- the confusion of how reality such as it is, is (how is it?). Life, space, time. How all is a symbol for all and there is no such thing as itself. As you read Lumky realize its conection to the scene in Ubiq where a table disappears and a paper falls to the earth with the word' 'table' written on it. Then at the end of your reading admit that you don't know whether all the time you've existed did exist or only seemed to (but to whom?). Horselover Fat(see Valis)- the true genius of 20th century letters. Oh if you've time- see the massive number of movies based on his work- from Alien to Bladerunner to Eternal Sunshine to Minority Report to Vanilla Sky to The Truman Show to Total Recall to Scanners to Next ... to Black Swan(?) He's great- good luck- but it will take work and many years. Too bad if you don't live that long but at least you started.