SOURCE: La Croix, James Keith. “You Lookin' At Me?” Metro Times, http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=3390 (19 June 2002).

In the following excerpt, La Croix discusses the role of paranoia in Dick's life and writing, especially the short story "The Minority Report.”

par-a-noi-a n. 1. a mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions … ascribed to the supposed hostility of others. 2. a baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others … Gk. paránoia madness.

And with Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise releasing their own big-budget meditation on paranoia in Minority Report, it's a fine time to ponder Philip K. Dick, the late pulp-fiction Kafka on whose writing the film is based. Or is it Dick's life that the film is based on? Dick didn't just write hundreds of short stories and dozens of novels about paranoia, he lived in that state of fear and insecurity. Take his correspondence with...