Books › Flow my tears, the policeman said
Flow my tears, the policeman said
First published 1974 · 377 pages
A hallucinatory plunge into a surveillance state where your very existence has been erased overnight.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like waking up in a cold sweat, only to realize the nightmare has followed you into the waking world. The narrative moves at a brisk, paranoid clip, dragging you through a gritty, claustrophobic dystopia where identity is as fragile as glass. The prose is pulpy yet laced with sudden, disarming philosophical depths, perfectly mirroring the protagonist's desperate scramble to prove he exists in a society that has entirely forgotten him. It is a dread-soaked, surreal experience that wraps you in a thick atmosphere of existential isolation and surveillance-state anxiety. This is a perfect match for readers who crave mind-bending, reality-fracturing science fiction that leaves them questioning the very fabric of their own lives long after the final page.
- Mood
- claustrophobic
- surreal
- dread-soaked
- hallucinatory
- Tone
- paranoid
- cynical
- philosophical
- urgent
- disorienting
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- loss of identity · nature of reality · surveillance state paranoia · existential isolation · celebrity and anonymity
- The writing
- Utilitarian and pulpy, yet punctuated by startlingly profound philosophical and psychological observations.
- The arc
- Moves from arrogant security to desperate, reality-questioning paranoia, culminating in a melancholic acceptance of a fractured world.
- Who it's for
- Fans of mind-bending, dystopian sci-fi who enjoy questioning the fabric of reality alongside flawed, desperate protagonists.
Content notes
- drug use
- police brutality
- existential dread
- sexual content
- psychological manipulation
About the book
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said is a 1974 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The story follows a genetically enhanced pop singer and television star who wakes up in a world where he has never existed. The novel is set in a futuristic dystopia, where the United States has become a police state in the aftermath of a Second Civil War. It was nominated for a Nebula Award in 1974 and a Hugo Award in 1975, and was awarded the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1975.
TV star Jason Taverner is no more. Overnight, he looses his ID cards, the records about him in the official databases have strangely vanished and no one seems to know him any more. Even the songs he recorded don’t exist any more. In an oppressing police state, Jason struggels not to get arrested.
Description from Open Library.
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