Anne Mini, the daughter of Dick's second wife Kleo Apostolides claims that she developed a deep friendship with PKD over the telephone while he was isolated by agoraphobia and she was getting over her father's death. She's written a memoir claiming that she and PKD constructed:
"a fantastic and fictive biography for the famously elusive sci-fi writer that, strangely enough, helped generate not only a majority of the accepted biographical information currently available on Dick, but functioned as source material for some of his acclaimed final works, including VALIS"
Dick's estate has threatened Mini's publisher repeatedly and as of now it's not clear the book will ever be released. On a message board on philipkdickfans.com Dick's family responded to a question about the delayed release saying:
"The book that Anne Mini has written contains numerous factual errors confirmed by his children, former wives, stepdaughters, and close friends. The Dick family has brought the errors to the attention of the publisher.
Sincerely,
Laura, Isa and Chris
Hatte, Jayne and Tandy
Anne Dick, Nancy Hackett and Tessa Dick
Russell Galen - friend and literary agent of 27 years
Paul Williams - friend, biographer and former Literary Executor of the Philip K Dick Trust."
Here's a a long thread on philipkdickfans.com detailing the legal wranglings. Here's another.
How can the estate put the kibosh on this book? How did I not hear of this sooner?
I don't see any difference between this memoir and Carrere's semi-fictional biography and find this all very strange.
5 comments:
"They're complaining not about the book itself but how it is being marketed."
Money, money, money. As usual.
I heard it's not so much that the Dick estate has a legal foot to stand on, but that they have the financial resources to take it to court and keep it there for years. Makes me sad. The author has a blog which mostly contains writing advice for other authors but the subject of this memoir comes up from time to time. I found a post where she mentions the Dick estate's issues with the book which, according to this post, are exceedingly vague. Looks like the book might die. Yay for free speech. :( http://www.annemini.com/?p=296
I'm sorry, but the young lady could not possibly have spoken to my husband on the telephone because we did not have a telephone. We were too poor to get a telephone.
Her book is pure fantasy.
How can you complain about this if the accusation is that it is completely fictitious. Freedom of speech doesn't include libel.
Tessa,
I've noticed that you've commented on several posts here. I would love to speak with you. Please email me at dcgill@sfsu.edu
Thanks,
David
Post a Comment