DICK, Philip K.

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Typed letter signed to Claudia Bush. A typed letter signed from Dick to MA student Claudia Krenz Bush, with three minor manuscript corrections by Dick. In this letter, Dick is anxious and frustrated by his ongoing custody battle with his ex-wife Nancy, who has disappeared with their daughter, Isa.It is a very intimate letter, touching only briefly on what Dick calls his "metaphysic" and the nature of reality. Dick promises to "do what I can to inform you as to the True & Authentic Nature of the Universe, but at this time all I feel is the cold and darkening clouds, the gradual numbing inside me". Nancy was mentally unstable and could be volatile, so her disappearance with Isa scared Dick, though it strengthened his custody case: "There is little in the world to induce immediate fear and then a continual descent into dread than to have your attorney say excitedly in your ear, 'She's disappeared! She's gone!'"There is a break in the letter, and Dick returns later the same day to report that Isa has been found safe with Nancy's sister Ann, whom Dick admits is better suited to raise his daughter than either Nancy or himself. Slightly buoyed, Dick is able to turn to his and Claudia's most frequent topic of correspondence: his VALIS visions and the nature of reality. "'What is reality?' is falsely asked, and should go: 'What are reality?' I believe it consists of two mirror opposites..."This letter is published in The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick (1991).

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