MachineMachine /stream

While mainstream literary figures sometimes praise their fellow writers, rarely do they present themselves publicly as hardcore pop culture fans. Since the publication of his novels Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude, as well as his reception of the MacArthur Fellowship in 2005, Jonathan Lethem has become a successful and widely-praised author of playful and intelligent literary fictions. He has also become probably the most visible fan and proponent of the science fiction of Philip K. Dick. A few years ago, Lethem was commissioned by the august Library of America to edit a volume of Dick‘s writings for the publisher‘s definitive canon of American letters. The initial volume, Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s was the best-selling title out of the gate in the history of the library, and two more Lethem-edited volumes of Dick‘s work followed (Philip K. Dick: Five Novels of the 1960s & 70s and Philip K. Dick: VALIS and Later Novels).

Lethem began his own writing career d