Illusion, USA: Time Out of Joint (1959) by Philip K. Dick

Something is unreal in small-town America

Written as an attempt to escape the treadmill of poorly-paid genre science fiction work, Time Out of Joint (1959) heralds Philip K. Dick’s growing preoccupation with unreal and deceptive worlds. It straddles aspects of his attempts at mainstream fiction, and the formula SF he was then pumping out for Ace Books. While unsuccessful on publication - with the strapline “a novel of menace” - Time Out of Joint can be seen retrospectively as a “bridge novel”, a step in Dick’s ascent to SF immortality.

While it eventually devolves into a thinly-described and routine genre SF scenario, the earlier parts of Time Out of Joint explore a uniquely deceptive environment. Opening in a small-town 1950s situation that is soon revealed to be an elaborate illusion, the novel addresses themes of nostalgia, paranoia, and the desire to explore, develop, and grow independently.

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Looking for a way out

In the mid- to late-1950s, Dick was stuck in a rut. His efforts to make it as a writer of mainstream fiction were “exceedingly ambitious - and almost totally unsuccessful” (SFE). To make ends meet, he wrote short science fiction novels for editor Donald A. Wollheim. These were published as part of the Ace Doubles line, and included Dick's debut Solar Lottery (1955). 

Time Out of Joint was intended to alter the course of Dick's stalled career. The idea was to fuse the two halves of his literary personality into a successful whole. The novel begins in an outwardly realistic, suburban scenario which is gradually worn away, revealing a fairly traditional SF situation involving war between Earth and the Moon. The transition between these modes is charged with Dick's trademark deployment of paranoia and unreliable memories.

White picket prison

Ragle Gumm is a seemingly ordinary middle-aged single man, living in a small town with his sister and brother-in-law. Conversely, his job is unusual - every day, he enters and always wins a newspaper competition called “Where Will the Little Green Man Be Next?” Gumm spends his time researching the arcane clues provided by the newspaper, and analysing data from past installments. These efforts are apparently the reason for his lucrative success.

Gumm - and the reader - slowly become aware of strange aspects of his environment. No one in the town has heard of Marilyn Monroe, and no one owns a radio because there are no broadcasts to tune into. The Tucker car, which in our world never made it to mass production, is a familiar presence to Gumm. Most bizarrely, certain objects simply disappear, replaced by pieces of paper with printed text referring to the missing item, like “SOFT-DRINK STAND” or “HIGHWAY”. Gradually, Gumm begins to realise that his world is an illusion, a simulacrum created to deceive him in particular. 

Together with his brother-in-law Vic, Gumm seeks a way to escape this deception and uncover his place in the real world.

The good old days

When the truth becomes clear to Gumm, he learns that the actual year is 1998. The militaristic government of that time had imprisoned him within a flawed reproduction of the 1950s. The aim was to cocoon Gumm within a version of the era of his childhood, to exploit his precognitive talent. The stupefying effect of nostalgia was weaponised against him, to make him content and pliable. This brings to mind today's cynical political deployment of nostalgia, harking back to “good old days” which in reality, never existed as described.

Gumm's displacement into a false 1950s also infantilises him. Given the ability to dictate every aspect of Gumm's life, the state leaves him without a home of his own, a real job, or a partner. His only attempt at a relationship is directed at his neighbour’s wife, whom he does not even like or respect - this reflects the dramatically foreshortened perspective he has in his miniature world.

Gumm’s world is small and compartmentalised and he feels he has no future prospects. PKD - who was likely struggling with some of these feelings himself - suggests that it is not possible to grow or advance as a person while living a lie, while trapped by an illusion. The truth, for better or worse, is a precondition for peace of mind.

A war for lunatics

Dick maintains a pervasive sense of unease for much of the novel. Things begin to unravel towards the end, when Gumm uncovers the truth about his situation. In contrast to the carefully wrought illusion of 1959, the reality of 1998 is relatively banal. Earth’s war against rebellious lunar colonists - the “lunatics” - is revealed abruptly, resolved swiftly, and never convinces.

Time Out of Joint suggests that Dick was more engaged in the writing of Gumm’s paranoid illusion than in the fairly familiar SF scenario which is his real world. Dick’s preoccupation with unreal worlds, with mind-bending twists of authenticity, was only beginning.