Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
A pop singer vanishes from existence in a police-state dystopia.
American author Philip K. Dick wrote the 1974 science fiction novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Its story takes place in a future police state born from a second American civil war. The main character, Jason Taverner, is a genetically modified pop star and TV personality who suddenly finds himself in a reality where he never existed. The book earned nominations for the 1974 Nebula and 1975 Hugo Awards, and it won the 1975 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Philip K. Dick
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Science fiction, paranoid fiction
- Publisher
- Doubleday
- Released
- 1974
- Format
- Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
- Pages
- 231
Facts from the source article.
Plot
The novel is set in a dystopian version of 1988, following a Second Civil War that collapsed democratic institutions. The National Guard and police reestablished order through a dictatorship headed by a Director, with police marshals and generals commanding in the field. Resistance is confined to university campuses, where radicalized former students live in subterranean kibbutzim. Recreational drug use is widespread, the age of consent is 12, and the black population is nearly extinct. Personal aircraft enable rapid long-distance commuting. The protagonist, Jason Taverner, hosts a weekly TV show watched by 30 million viewers. His girlfriend Heather Hart, also a singer, appears as a guest. Both are Sixes, genetically engineered elite humans. After leaving the studio, Taverner visits a former lover who attacks him with a parasitic life-form; parts remain inside him. Hart rescues him and takes him to a medical facility.
Author's interpretation
In his undelivered speech 'How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later,' Dick describes recounting an incident from the end of the book (chapter 27) to an Episcopalian priest, who noted its similarity to a scene in Acts of the Apostles. In the novel, police chief Felix Buckman meets a black stranger at an all-night gas station, makes an emotional connection, gives him a drawing of a heart pierced by an arrow, flies away, then returns to hug him and chat. In Acts Chapter 8, the disciple Philip meets an Ethiopian eunuch (a black man) in a chariot, explains a passage from Isaiah, and converts him. Dick also notes that eight years after writing the book, he uncharacteristically helped a black stranger who had run out of gas, giving him money, driving away, then returning to help him reach a station—struck by the similarity to his book. Dick recounts an unusual dream he had while writing, which he felt compelled to include in the text; years later he interpreted this dream as the key to the story's real meaning.
Adaptations
Mabou Mines presented the world premiere of a theatrical adaptation of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said at the Boston Shakespeare Theatre from June 18–30, 1985. The play received mixed reviews but was widely covered by the Boston media. Linda Hartinian, a personal friend of Dick, adapted the novel and designed the set, also portraying Mary Ann Dominic and reading Dick's 1981 'Tagore Letter' at the play's end. In an interview with The Boston Phoenix before the play opened, Hartinian said Dick gave her a manuscript of the novel, saying it would someday be worth a lot of money. The Phoenix noted that this draft contained passages cut from the published text, including a discussion of ways to remember deceased writers that proved prescient; Hartinian based her script on her private edition. The play was directed by Bill Raymond, Hartinian's husband. Raymond told the Phoenix that the adaptation was chosen in response to Hartinian's loss, because Flow My Tears is a novel about grief, not just loss of identity. The play has been performed by Mabou Mines in Boston and New York City, by the Prop Theatre in Chicago, and by the Evidence Room in Los Angeles. The Evidence Room production received positive reviews, including one from the Los Angeles Times stating that 'the piece is vintage Dick, fluctuating between the inventive and the paranoiac.' On February 1, 2004, Variety announced that Utopia Pictures & Television acquired rights to adapt three Dick novels including this one. In 2007, The Halcyon Company acquired first-look rights to Dick's works, and in May 2009 they announced they would adapt Flow My Tears after Terminator Salvation. The book is referenced in the 2001 film Waking Life and in Richard Kelly's 2006 film Southland Tales, where an underground revolutionary dressed as a police officer says 'Flow my tears' while shooting two rivals, and two main characters are Roland and Ronald Taverner.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who published Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said?
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said was published by Doubleday.
How many pages is Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said?
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said has 231 pages.
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