Mary and the Giant

by Philip K. Dick

Book Overview

Dissatisfied with her life in a small California town, Mary Anne Reynolds decides to make some changes.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312033982
• ISBN13: 9780312033989
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

One of Dick's better mainstream novels

Completed in 1955, but not published until 1987, Mary and the Giant revolves around a subject close to Dick's heart, music. Almost everybody in the novel is related somehow to the music business; music is the constant topic of conversation and is usually playing in the background. Joe Schilling, the "giant" of the title, is a record-shop proprietor who represents a taste for the classical, while Mary Ann Reynolds, a young woman whom he hires as a sales clerk, gravitates to jazz. A very strong example of Dick's mainstream writing, Mary and the Giant is a tight, well-constructed narrative. The character of Mary is convincing and compelling. Although cold on the surface, she is a multilayered creation with whom the author empathizes strongly. Her refreshing honesty and directness are seductive. The scenes in the jazz club, the wild party, the sordid and claustrophobic atmosphere of Mary's family home, and the well-drawn subsidiary characters make this novel memorable.

Mary, Mary, Mary!

This novel is a precursor to Dick's sci-fi masterpieces. Mary, a quirky, twenty year old suffering from a borderline personality disorder and dysphoria, takes center stage. Her mood swings, frigidity, diffused guilt, unstable identity and inability to decide who to mate with dominate the plot. Dick creates the character Mary living in an alien world- "sometime in a hundred years her world might exist." The womanizer, Schilling's attempt to bring her up to the surface and provide Mary with a retreat, a place to hide, fails miserably. Later, in his sci-fi, when Dick provides his misfit characters with alien worlds to inhabit his writing takes off. But trying to describe this sort of neurotic within the 1950's milieu barely works. The happy ending for Mary was a pleasant, though barely credible, surprise

the best

This is my favorite book of Dick's. The everyday struggle of the characters tears at the heart. I actually prefer Dick's "regular" novels to his science fiction. Few saw clearer the reality around them than this master of the imagination.

not sci fi, novel has excellent people study

I loved this. It's one of Dick's better books. Story of strange young woman and how she finds her place in the world. Very interesting characters.