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Content snapshot
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Violence
Some
Some violence; drug-related danger throughout
Language
A lot
Strong language throughout
Sexual Content
Some
Some adult content
Substance Use
Very heavy
Substance D addiction is the novel's entire subject; drug use depicted in complete, clinical, devastating detail
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The psychological dissolution of a man whose addiction has divided him from himself; one of fiction's most honest portraits of drug addiction
What this book is about
Bob Arctor is a narcotics agent living undercover in a house of drug users in near-future California. The scramble suits worn by agents make them unidentifiable even to each other—so Arctor's superiors assign him to surveil his own house without knowing who the suspect is. Substance D is slowly splitting his brain into two non-communicating halves. Dick's most autobiographical novel—based on his own experiences and the deaths of friends—is a devastating portrait of addiction as self-erasure, preceded by a list of friends who died or were damaged by the events it describes.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Substance D addiction depicted in graphic detail throughout
A protagonist whose mind is being destroyed by drugs
Adults only; may be disturbing to readers with addiction history
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