Auto/biographical literature has been theorized with metaphors that reflect its inherent instability as a form of truth-telling. The best auto/biographies exhibit a metanarrational awareness of this instability and favor the art of writing over the alleged “truth” of a life. The autobiographical nature of Philip K. Dick's novels and stories has spawned a sizable body of biographical texts, many of which are creative performances that give primacy to the artistic impulse. Most critical biographies about Dick, on the other hand, do not account for this dynamic; instead, they read the fiction as a symptom of the author’s notorious drug use and schizoid tendencies. Bolstered by scholarship on Auto/Biography and Science Fiction Studies as well as psychoanalytic theory, The Auto/Biographies of Philip K. Dick: Infinite Regressions surveys and analyzes the proliferation of "biotexts" written about the science-fiction icon, who consistently eroded the boundary between lived and imagined experience, turning his own precarious sense of reality into the generative engine for his fiction and the biographical mythology that continues to orbit his work.

REVIEWS

"Herein D. Harlan Wilson takes on one of the most bedeviling dimensions of the PKD universe: the hallucinatory hybrids of biography and fiction that shape our ideas of both Dick the man and Dick the writer. As Wilson shows us, these loop-de-loops of fact and fantasy invade critical biographies, litter texts and graphic novels by acolyte authors, and, of course, inform the many narratives that Dick himself tells of himself, from his ‘VALIS trilogy’ to the feedback stutters of the Exegesis. As one of the Dickhead critics that Wilson discusses, I can attest to the abyss of recursion such 'biografictions' risk. But Wilson is up for the task. With the rigorous care of a scholar, the obsessive focus of a fan, and the speculative jazz of a storyteller, he plays Dick’s infinite game with aplomb." —ERIK DAVIS, author of High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies

"Infinite Regressions follows Philip K. Dick down a unique meta-biographical wormhole in which the author, already a creation of own his writings during his lifetime, is transformed into a posthumous legend that acts as a looking-glass where biographers and fan-writers meet their own projections staring back at them. Wilson's scrupulous research into the unique circumstances surrounding the creation of this unique literary reputation is matched by a wealth of insight." —JONATHAN LETHEM, author of Chronic City and co-editor of The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

"This study of the many biographies of Philip K. Dick amounts to a biography of Dick itself: as D. Harlan Wilson reveals, every new approach to Dick’s life paints a new portrait of this protean author. It’s only appropriate that, carefully working his way as he does through books about Dick by scholars, theorists, and two of his wives, Wilson finds Dick’s ultimate tale-teller to be Dick himself, a man whose autobiography was his very own auto-da-fé." —GREGG RICKMAN, author of To the High Castle: Philip K. Dick, A Life

"This important book is full of fascinating insights. I highly recommend it to all Philip K. Dick aficionados as well as anyone interested in the processes of biography, authorship, and literary self-construction." —ANTHONY PEAKE, author of A Life of Philip K. Dick: The Man Who Remembered the Future

"Infinite Regressions examines Philip K. Dick's life and career largely through his biographical texts, a clever approach that helps us comprehend the impact of this multifaceted author on the culture of the 20th and 21st centuries." —LAURENT QUEYSSI, author of Philip K. Dick: A Comics Biography

"In The Auto/Biographies of Philip K. Dick, D. Harlan Wilson presents one of the most refined reflections on Dick's legacy imprinted in the numerous life-writings about him. He illustrates the complex connection between life-writing, paratexts, and Dick's own lifework while providing valuable tools for the exploration of auto/biofictional textuality." —MARIJA KRSTEVA, author of Towards a Theory of Life-Writing: Genre Blending