Book Review: THEY: A Sequence of Unease by Kay Dick

 

They by Kay Dick

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

A funny thing happened to me with this book. I have no idea why I am reading it. No clue at all. At some point, I put a hold on it at my library, and for what reason, I don’t remember. I assume I read a reference to it or an article that referenced it at some point. I probably opened my library app and put a hold on it but I don’t remember doing it. It took 9 months to show up at the library. The cover looked interesting. So I decided to read cold, not even reading the back cover description.

THEY or AKA THEY: A Sequence of Unease is a really short and interesting book. It is clearly one of those books that are considered literary fiction but are actually an SF dystopian novel. Kay Dick has no relation to the bay area writer I spend most of my time writing about. From what I have researched, or more truly what it said in the Afterword and the bio on the back cover she was a publisher. She had a few novels but her partner Kathleen Ferrill was more famous for her writing. Kay was known for doing a series of literary interviews. So I am told.

Kay Dick is new to me. From the start I can say this book is not a fun light read, I think it will be more read as an academic curiosity than message or entertainment. For me, the reading experience started strong and kinda fizzled a little bit. The short chapters go quick and add up to a short book, in modern terms it is hardly more than a novella but just over one hundred pages.

They is a book that appears if I overanalyze the little I know about the author to be about the isolation of being queer and an artist in a time less friendly to those things. Since I finished I have learned this is considered a Queer classic that often gets compared to Orwell’s 1984. By the way, Kay Dick published and edited Orwell and was friends with the writer.

The early chapters of this book are great at creating dread and really building upon subtle details. To create the unease of the subtitle. The story creates a very subtle but powerful dystopia that is like a classy take on the underrated Christian Bale movie Equilibrium. In this world creating art is dangerous because the amorphous forces just called They will come for you and your creations.

“I don’t lock my door anymore,” I said. “They took another book last night.”
“Yes they’re getting more active,” Claire said.
“Their approach is slower in this part of the country,” I said.
“The odd sniper,” Claire laughed.
“The avant-garde.” We rocked with hysteria.

Clearly, Kay Dick is making a statement about being an artist as much as the art here. The feeling of being an outsider. Comparisons to Bradbury and Orwell’s dystopian classics don’t really land with me as early in the book the characters still have servants and privilege.  In the Afterword, there were comparisons made Anna Kavan’s classic ICE. That solved the mystery. I read and loved that book earlier in the year, and I think I was looking at similar books. This book, and on offense to Kay Dick and her fans but They can’t come close to the power of ICE.

A comparison of the two will help show the weakness of They. Ice is a creepy dread-filled novel that sticks with you long after you read it.  The creeping dread of the approaching “They/them” who were just shadowy monsters here didn’t land as hard as it could. Not that there were not strong moments of writing that created this creepy atmosphere.

“They’ll be drenched,” I said.
“They don’t mind.”

See I do like that. It creates one-sentence questions about who They are. Why won’t they mind getting drenched? Are they human? Are they something else? What the fuck are They?

This book is all vibe. It wasn’t until half the novel was gone that we saw some traditional genre world-building that really seemed to put the characters in danger besides their art and books disappearing. I think that is fine for literary readers, but traditional SF fans may be turned off.  I liked the concept of the book, I even liked the writing but there were times it was too subtle.
On page 49 in the wake of the first real world-building, the mission statement of the book gets one paragraph.

No, fear we represent danger. Non-conformity is an illness. We’re possible sources of contagion. We’re offered opportunities to,” he gave a slight chuckle, “Integrate. Refusal is considered as hostility.”  

As someone interested in the canon of 20th-century dystopias I am glad I checked out They, it was smart and interesting. I am not sure I can wholeheartedly recommend it. If you have read all the classics, and are interested in that canon sure. It is good lit fiction but it didn’t knock my socks off.