A Scanner Darkly
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Overview
“Dick is Thoreau plus the death of the American dream.”—Roberto Bolaño
Bob Arctor is a junkie and a drug dealer, both using and selling the mind-altering Substance D. Fred is a law enforcement agent, tasked with bringing Bob down. It sounds like a standard case. The only problem is that Bob and Fred are the same person. Substance D doesn’t just alter the mind, it splits it in two, and neither side knows what the other is doing or that it even exists. Now, both sides are growing increasingly paranoid as Bob tries to evade Fred while Fred tries to evade his suspicious bosses.
In this award-winning novel, friends can become enemies, good trips can turn terrifying, and cops and criminals are two sides of the same coin. Dick is at turns caustically funny and somberly contemplative, fashioning a novel that is as unnerving as it is enthralling.
Perhaps the most unnerving drug novel ever written as well as an industrial-grade stress test of identity. A Scanner Darkly explores the perverse symbiosis of cop and criminal, observer and observed.