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Confessions of a Crap Artist | 
 enlarge | Author: Philip K. Dick
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $6.32
You Save: $7.63 (55%)
New (24) Used (22) Collectible (2) from $3.99
Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 214778
Media: Paperback
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0679741143
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780679741145
ASIN: 0679741143
Publication Date: June 30, 1992
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Book is new. We serve thousands of customers. Shipped USPS on same day except Sat & Sun.
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Product Description
Confessions of a Crap Artist is one of Philip K. Dick's weirdest and most accomplished novels. Jack Isidore is a crap artist -- a collector of crackpot ideas (among other things, he believes that the earth is hallow and that sunlight has weight) and worthless objects, a man so grossly unequipped for real life that his sister and brother-in-law feel compelled to rescue him from it. But seen through Jack's murderously innocent gaze, Charlie and Juddy Hume prove to be just as sealed off from reality, in thrall to obsessions that are slightly more acceptable than Jack's, but a great deal uglier."One of the most original practitioners writing any kind of fiction." -- The Sunday Times (London) "Dick is entertaining us about reality and madness, time and death, sin and salvation.... We have our own homegrown Barges." -- Ursula K. LeGuin, New Republic "Philip K. Dick's best books always describe a future that is both entirely recognizable and utterly unimaginable? -- The New York Times Book Review
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 American Woman! April 1, 2006
Steven W. Cooper (Perigueux, FRANCE)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Fay is a spoiled, manipulative woman operating on a level far beyond anything the men in her life can contend with. Her brother is an emotionally stunted man: as wishy-washy as his sister is decisive. Her husband and lover are both victims of Fay's selfish scheming.
Dick has presented Fay's marriage break-up in a very specific way. He's got things to say about the sexual balance of power and the nascent craziness in late 50s California. I'd be curious to know how these observations were received when they were written. Many of them are still relevant and interesting.
On the surface there's nothing sinister about Fay's actions. When people get to know her better, they find her unreflective and a little childish; but they give her the benefit of the doubt. By the time they've peeled back the next layer and realized that everything she does is carefully calculated as part of her grand plan, it's too late and the person is already trapped. The final revelation is that Fay's grand plan is nothing more than a selfish, shallow desire for respectability; and the victim knows then that he's stuck in someone else's nightmare.
The moral is to never trust surface appearances - even if the sex is good. A self-evident point, you may think; but Dick has done his job so well that you may find yourself examining your own partner's actions and intentions more carefully after reading this book.
 Best of Dick's mainstream novels June 4, 2004
Doug Mackey (Fairfield, IA USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book, written in 1959 and finally published in 1975, was the first of Dick's mainstream novels to appear in book form. In many ways it is probably the best: its multi-focal narration offers inside glimpses into the minds of two of Dick's most fascinating characters-the "crap artist" Jack Isidore and his sister Fay Hume. The novel derives its energy from the juxtaposition of their radically different perspectives. Jack was the classic nerd in high school, who was obsessed with pseudoscience and adolescent power fantasies, which if anything have intensified as he has grown into his thirties. Faye is impulsive, uninhibited, outspoken, and aggressively sexual. But the root of her attractiveness lies in her ability to live in the moment with a seeming intensity and freedom. This combination is potent in tempting Nat Anteil, a young student, away from his wife, while driving Fay's husband Charlie to a violent end. The predictably tragic consequences of this situation put the reader in the odd position of identifying with the nerd, whose emotionally stunted state make him an ideal and acute observer of the passionate madness of the other characters.
the alien EVERYDAY October 3, 2003
david (ALaMO usa)
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
lift off! the everyday veneer and see whats real and not, like sputtering about in a big head in a small land dicks brilliance shines through more opaque than usual. his most easiest obvious the paranoid as normal premise REVEALED clear as a shiny brook in the wilds.
Classic Stuff September 23, 2003
Steve West (Adelaide, Australia)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This was the first of Dick's mainstream novels I read, it made me wonder what kind of mainstream writer Dick would have made had he found more success in the genre (was the 50's society he wrote about too conservative to accept these novels?).
Even though this story is set in a 50's environment, it doesn't miss a beat in any regard, Confessions of a Crap Artist is as engrossing and page-turning a book as any of his science fiction novels. The way the story unfolds keeps you at the edge of your seat and you may find yourself laughing at the insanity of regular, seemingly successful people who dig themselves into giant ruts by involving themselves with people when they should know better.
If you like Phillip K. Dick's work you must read this novel, if you buy it it will take a valued place in your collection.
Life as a retread. May 27, 2003
Brandon R. Sonderegger (Madison, WI United States)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I tell you, this book made me sadder than I've been in so very long. It's about so many things that push my buttons that if I were a crap artist like Jack Isidore, I'd believe Mr. Dick was writing to me personally. It's hard to pick out what's the top layer of the book and what's subtext and so forth. There are definate themes, though. Jack is a crank. A real nutcase. He sees as real whatever sounds the neatest to him. Aliens and so forth. And the book is an exploration of him coming to terms with how he collects 'crap' ideas in his head. And how he realizes that the people who are 'normal' collect their own crap, but it's all emotial and motivational crap and therefor not rigorously testable like his pseudo-science crap beliefs.It's also about a supremely selfish woman coming to terms with herself, a honest man baffled by his own reactions to the world and his wife, an intellectual knowingly watching his slide into hell and the ruination of his marriage, the duplicity of affairs and more importaintly, the self delusion often involved in precipitating affairs. The vindictiveness in people. The need to destroy out of spite, out of anger, and out of frustration as if destruction somehow brings understanding. And how sometimes it does. It's about a house. A marvelous house that eats everything in it. It's about modern society. It's about wanting everything you don't need and needing what you don't want. It's beautiful, sad, inspiring, and woeful. It's about a sweet woman turned bitter. About hope snuffed out and resignation kindled in its place as a pale replacement. It's about the dominoes of life, how kicks travel from one person to another. You kick me, I kick him, he kicks her, she kicks some stranger. It's about telling lies on tires, telling lies on lives, telling lies on ourselves. It's about the blowout in the tire that reveals the truth, the blowout in each and every one of us. I kept thinking "Oh, no... oh no... " as I read this book. The ending is as unavoidable as it is predictible, and you fight against the whole way, and you're relieved when it happens, and saddened at each chance to pick another path lost. I think this may be one of Dick's best books, up there with Adroids and his other well known books.
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