In The Novels of Philip K. Dick , Kim Stanley Robinson states that " In Milton Lumky Territory . . . is probably the best of Dick's realist novels aside from Confessions of a Crap Artist ," and calls it a "bitter indictment of the effects of capitalism." Dick, on the other hand, in his forward, says "This is actually a very funny book, and a good one, too."
Milton Lumky territory is both an area of the western USA and a psychic terrain: the world and world-view of the traveling salesman. The story takes place in Boise, Idaho, with some extraordinary long-distance driving sequences in which our hero (young Bruce Stevens) drives from Boise to San Francisco, to Reno, to Pocatello, to Seattle, and back to Boise in search of a good deal on some wholesale typewriters. He falls under the spell of an attractive older woman (who used to be his school teacher) and Milton Lumky, a middle-aged paper salesman whose territory is the Northwest. And then Bruce and the others slowly sink into the whirlpool of his immature personal obsessions and misperceptions.
A compassionate and ironic portrayal of three characters enmeshed in a sticky web of everyday events, in a tension between love and money, with a basic failure to communicate, In Milton Lumky Territory stands out among Dick's early works.
“A kind of pulp-fiction Kafka, a prophet.”
-- *The New York Times
“Remarkable. . .echoes of Dick’s contemporaries such as Ralph Ellison, Richard Yates, Rod Serling, Raymond Chandler and early Kurt Vonnegut Jr. resonate. . . . Dick fans will be in rapture.”
-- Publishers Weekly [boxed review] on Voices from the Street
Description:
In The Novels of Philip K. Dick , Kim Stanley Robinson states that " In Milton Lumky Territory . . . is probably the best of Dick's realist novels aside from Confessions of a Crap Artist ," and calls it a "bitter indictment of the effects of capitalism." Dick, on the other hand, in his forward, says "This is actually a very funny book, and a good one, too."
Milton Lumky territory is both an area of the western USA and a psychic terrain: the world and world-view of the traveling salesman. The story takes place in Boise, Idaho, with some extraordinary long-distance driving sequences in which our hero (young Bruce Stevens) drives from Boise to San Francisco, to Reno, to Pocatello, to Seattle, and back to Boise in search of a good deal on some wholesale typewriters. He falls under the spell of an attractive older woman (who used to be his school teacher) and Milton Lumky, a middle-aged paper salesman whose territory is the Northwest. And then Bruce and the others slowly sink into the whirlpool of his immature personal obsessions and misperceptions.
A compassionate and ironic portrayal of three characters enmeshed in a sticky web of everyday events, in a tension between love and money, with a basic failure to communicate, In Milton Lumky Territory stands out among Dick's early works.
**
From Publishers Weekly
First published in 1985 by a small press, this realist (read: not sci-fi) early novel from dystopian master Dick (1928–1982) bears the following introductory author's note: This is actually a very funny book, and a good one, too, in that the funny things that happen happen to real people who come alive. The ending is a happy one. What more can an author say? What more can he give? To which one answers indeed, and quickly turns to the adventures of protagonist Bruce Stevens as he drives into the Pacific Northwest—the sales territory of a Willy Lomanesque man named Milton Lumky—looking for wholesale typewriters. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“A kind of pulp-fiction Kafka, a prophet.”
-- *The New York Times
-- Publishers Weekly [boxed review] on Voices from the Street