This full length novel was written in 1977 and is pretty much a straight autobiography by Philip K Dick of his life after he divorced his wife. He wasn't an undercover cop - but he did live in a run down old house with a few friends, and they all did drugs constantly. One friend was obsessed by bugs. Another one was completely paranoid. They worried about narcs infiltrating their group.
This story is written almost stream-of-consciousness so you have to kick back, relax and go with the story. The story is set "in the future" from 1977, which still happens to now be in our past - 1994. Fred, a cop, is undercover in a druggie-filled house under the name of "Bob Arctor". He is trying to figure out who is dealing a powerful drug, Substance D. When he's in the police station, to hide his identity, he wears a "scramble suit" - a full body outfit that hides who he is. Nobody at the cop station - including his boss - knows what he really looks like. They only know he's assigned to a certain druggie-filled house. So shortly into the story he's told by his boss to focus on a certain person in the house - Bob. I.e. himself.
The house is set up with cameras and audio recording houses, so soon Fred (the cop) is watching videos of Bob (the druggie, the same person) hanging out with his friends and having really long, nonsensical conversations. But are they really nonsensical? They worry about narcs (which is valid). They worry about being watched (which is valid). In twisted ways, many of the things they ramble about are true, that many "normal" people wouldn't have picked up on.
Being a Philip K Dick story, there's a twist, and the story ends on a realistic note, not a Hollywood one. But as always Dick gives you the sense that things really can get better, if the average person just reaches out and tries.
I can see why some people have problems with this book. It's not a straightforward plot of X happens Y happens Z is the reason. Instead, it's a complex interplay of personalities. Each person in the story has a rich world both in reality and in their fantasy mind. Part of what Substance D does is split the brain into parts so that a person can literally believe two things at once ("the gas tank is full" and "the gas tank is empty"). So sometimes when Fred is at the police station he knows that his undercover personae is Bob - and sometimes he completely forgets and thinks Bob is one of his druggy friends that he distrusts. Barris, one of the druggie house-mates, seems both a brilliant scientist and a completely inept crazy. He sits and watches as another druggie chokes to death, timing his call to the police so that he gets all the glory of reporting the tragic death. Donna, the only female in the story, sometimes has brilliant ideas and at other times seems completely lost. One of the druggies is obsessed with bugs - so another druggie dutifully helps him collect up the imaginary insects to bring in for scientific review. Both are shocked when the jars later are empty.
This isn't just a story about "drugs eat your brain, drugs suck". The book talks a great deal about how most of the people were hooked involuntarily and are now stuck with the addiction. It shows how those who supposedly help people break their addiction are heartless and cruel. The other members of society discard the druggies as being worthless, abandoning an entire group of their population to certain death. The druggies expect to steal from each other, lie to each other, and eventually die - sooner rather than later. It's not just a problem with the drugs. It's a problem with the entire society and how it treats those who have been hooked.
So a lot of the story is told in the small interactions with people. How Bob feels about Donna, his girlfriend who does't like to be touched. How Barris likes his friends while activly plotting their destruction. How the feelings which are real interleave with those which are imaginary. As hard as any character tries to pin down "what is really happening', reality shimmers. In one scene Bob sleeps with a random girl he met - and thinks for a moment he slept with Donna. Even later, in the police station, watching the recording of the scene, he sees that same vision. Is his basic sense of reality so skewed that it cannot be distinguised from the things he sees? Do any of us know what we really see - or what we think we've seen?
I really did love many of the scenes in the book, including the classic 10-speed-bike scene. How each character reacts to the situation is priceless. They each have their own agenda and motivations.
This isn't a murder mystery where the end of the book wraps up everything neatly and explains why each person did what they did. In fact, the book ends with a list of Philip K Dick's actual friends and family who were harmed or killed by drugs. He includes himself and his ex-wife on the list. The book is an insight into what drugs really do to groups of people - and what our society suffers as a result. It's a wake-up call for people to start caring - and to start listening.
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