A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick was ahead of his time when he penned A Scanner Darkly. Published in 1977, it is a gritty dystopian story of undercover narcotics informant Bob Arctor who lives in a house with other substance abusers. The world is divided between dopers and straights and never the two intermix. The straights have been taught that the dopers are mindless fiends for the drugs - substance D.

When Arctor puts on a "scramble suit" causing him to appear as a faceless nameless blur, he takes on the persona of Fred, a narcotics agent charged, ironically with the surveillance of Bob Arctor, who seems to be making a play to become a heavy drug dealer. Because Arctor must consumer substance D in order to maintain his cover, the damage done to his brain causes him to suffer a rift in his reality, where eventually he no longer recognizes that Fred and Bob Arctor are one in the same. It's brilliantly painful, and slowly wrought as Dick's writing makes smaller and smaller moves to make us aware of the breakdown. 

At once a condemnation of the damage done by drugs, without condemnation of the users, Dick's story came from a deeply personal place, evident by the epilogue in which he lists the names of several people who died or became disabled due to their drug use. The novel also serves as an early condemnation of the war on drugs, which criminalized small dealers, but created an industry that required the addicts in order to operate. 

I can only imagine this was difficult to write. There were times when the story moved frustratingly slow, but mostly it was a pleasure to read. 

4/5 Stars.