Chapter 1 Summary

Phil is a science fiction writer who, to gain objectivity, tells his story in the third person about Horselover Fat. Fat begins a nervous breakdown in 1971 when Gloria Knudson asks for sleeping pills to kill herself. His psychiatrist has warned against drugs and trying to help people, but Fat stops neither. He coaxes Gloria into driving to Marin County, where he plans to save her. Shortly before she leaps from the tenth floor of the Synanon Building, Fat tries to get her to move in with him, although he sees that she is dead inside. She stays overnight and then vanishes. After the funeral, Fat learns that her mother had talked her into seeking help, where the standard Synanon techniques to tear down her personality prior to rebuilding had backfired.

Chapter 1 Analysis

The first chapter establishes several key facts. Philip K. Dick, who...