Gather Yourselves Together
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Gather Yourselves Together is an early novel by the late science fiction author Philip K Dick, written around 1948-1950, and published posthumously by WCS Books in 1994 (ISBN 1-878914-05-7). As with many of his early books which were considered unsuitable for publication when they were first submitted as manuscripts, this was not science fiction at all, but rather a work of straight literary fiction. The manuscript was 481 pages in length. By all accounts, the book was a disorganized ramble and much too long. This was an early book before the author had really nailed down his style and focus.
[edit] Plot
According to Lawrence Sutin's book, Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick, (1989) the plot was as follows:
- "Three isolated Americans in a newly Communist mainland China find that their personal lives are devoid of genuine values..." and "Despite a superficial plot framework," the novel isn't about politics. "It's about sex, betrayal, and the slow, hard dying of love's ideals."
Sutin speculates, "This is likely the first novel Phil completed."
Despite being an early, non-science fiction work, the book prefigures several staples of Phil's writing.
- Carl keeps a notebooks much like Phil's own 1970s Exegesis
- A "dead-cat-as-indictment-for-being" story that is very similar to the one later used in Valis.
- The first "Dark Haired Girl" in any of Phil's novels appears in one of Carl's flashbacks.
- "Teddy", one of Verne's past conquests, is likely a version of Phil's own imaginary sister of the same name.
- The conclusion of the novel draws tenuous parallels between America and the late Roman Empire, and between the early Christians and communist Chinese.
