Gather Yourselves Together

infobox Book |
name = Gather Yourselves Together
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of first edition (hardcover)
author = Philip K. Dick
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = WCS Books
release_date = 1994
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages = 292 pp
isbn = ISBN 1-878914-05-7
preceded_by =
followed_by = Voices from the Street

"Gather Yourselves Together" is an early novel by the late science fiction author Philip K. Dick, written around 1948-1950, and published posthumously by WCS Books in 1994. As with many of his early books which were considered unsuitable for publication when they were first submitted as manuscripts, this was not science fiction at all, but rather a work of straight literary fiction. The manuscript was 481 pages in length. At the time it was published, it was one of only two Dick novels for which the manuscript was known to exist which remained unpublished. The other, "Voices from the Street", was published in 2007.

Dwight Brown wrote Afterword.

Plot summary

After the final victory of Mao Zedong's Chinese Communists in 1949, an American company prepares to abandon their Chinese operations, leaving three people behind to oversee transitional affairs- Carl Fitter, Vernon Tildon and Barbara Mahler. Vernon and Barbara were previously involved with one another back in the United States, in 1945, when she lost her virginity to him. They have sex again, but Barbara has matured, and becomes more interested in Carl, who is younger than she is. Carl is more interested in reading his handwritten volume of personal philosophy to her, but Barbara does succeed in seducing him, shortly before the arrival of the Chinese.

Biographical Aspects of "Gather Yourselves Together"

Despite being an early, non-science fiction work, the book prefigures several staples of Phil's writing.
*Carl keeps a notebooks much like Phil's own 1970s "Exegesis"
*A "dead-cat-as-indictment-for-being" story that is very similar to the one later used in "Valis".
*The first "Dark Haired Girl" in any of Phil's novels appears in one of Carl's flashbacks.
*"Teddy", one of Verne's past conquests, is likely a version of Phil's own imaginary sister of the same name.
*The conclusion of the novel draws tenuous parallels between America and the late Roman Empire, and between the early Christians and communist Chinese.

Bibliography

*Bibliography of Philip K. Dick

External links

* [http://www.philipkdickfans.com/pkdweb/GATHER%20YOURSELVES%20TOGETHER.htm An overview]