Anne R. Dick, Memoirist, Muse 1927 - 2017

May 21, 2017 7:03 AM

Above all, Ms. Dick shows up in female characters. She inspired Juliana, the heroine of “High Castle,” who has no trouble slashing a Nazi operative’s throat, as well as a number of shrill, carping, unhappy wives in other books. "I was a good — what do you call it? — muse,” Ms. Dick said in a recent interview....

Anne R. Dick, Memoirist and Writer’s Muse, Is Dead at 90
posted by y2karl (13 comments total)

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posted by limeonaire at 7:18 AM on May 21, 2017

If there were a word for "do not marry this guy", I think Philip K Dick's picture would be next to it in the dictionary
posted by thelonius at 7:25 AM on May 21, 2017 [11 favorites]

Also:

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posted by evilDoug at 7:34 AM on May 21, 2017

This brief story about her autobiography, written by a friend of mine, was most of what I'd read about her to date. She was a remarkable storyteller and observer of human life in her own right.
posted by limeonaire at 7:37 AM on May 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

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posted by Halloween Jack at 7:45 AM on May 21, 2017

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posted by Pendragon at 7:55 AM on May 21, 2017

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posted by runcifex at 7:59 AM on May 21, 2017

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posted by Samizdata at 8:14 AM on May 21, 2017

A complicated person in her own right who seems to veer from hilariously aloof to sadly observant and lends the impression P.K. Dick didn't have even to caricature too much to churn out a Donna.

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posted by byanyothername at 1:06 PM on May 21, 2017

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posted by hap_hazard at 1:42 PM on May 21, 2017

The couple had a daughter, Laura. “I think he was like another child,” Ms. Dick said. “He was really a very, very nice husband.”

Nice, except for when his paranoia kicked in.

boy, understatement goes right past some people. no, not "except for" then, David Streitfeld. read what she said. you quoted it, man.

anyway just to keep this beside the point, an article/obituary whose subject is a woman who was named Anne Dick for most of her life, but which talks about Dick and Ms. Dick rather than Dick and Mr. Dick, is an article with even less respect for its subject than might be expected. I love PKD's books too but there is no reason to treat his ex-wife with contempt just because he did, and just because you can. hero worship ought to have its limits. that in fact is exactly the limit it ought to have. PKD at least had some extenuating circumstances to explain his behavior, whether or not it is excused, but they do not cover anybody else.

and I hope her novel is in a publishable state and her heirs choose to publish it.
posted by queenofbithynia at 5:51 PM on May 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

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I know what it's like living in a Philip K. Dick novel. I feel for her.
posted by paladin at 9:57 PM on May 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Ms. Dick was a 20-year-old student at Washington University when she met her first husband, Richard Rubenstein, a poet from a well-off St. Louis family. He helped found the little magazine Neurotica — “for and about neurotics, written by neurotics” — which was an influence on the budding Beat generation.

Huh. I did not know that. That would've made them part of the Fran and Jay Landesman circle and probably acquaintances, at least, of the likes of John Clellon Holmes and Gershon Legman.

(And having read the Russell piece linked above, I see that she was. I am definitely finding a copy of Anne and the Twentieth Century.)
posted by octobersurprise at 7:52 AM on May 22, 2017 [1 favorite]