“Anne and the Twentieth Century” is the surprisingly appropriate title of the newly published memoirs of Anne R. Dick, a longtime Point Reyes Station resident, bed-and-breakfast owner, jewelry-maker and author of seven books of poetry and reminiscences.
In telling stories about herself and her family, Anne—now 89—uses contemporaneous news events throughout the century as backdrops. These events range from the Great Depression (“Mom served one vegetarian meal a week to save money”) to World War II and the rise of Hitler, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the death of President Roosevelt, and the atomic bomb.
Periodically, Anne gives her own pithy assessment of political, cultural and military affairs. Adding further color is the book’s taking note of songs and movies that were popular when events occurred.
Anne’s second husband, with whom she had a daughter, Laura, was science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Philip gained international recognition for his books—11 of which were turned into Hollywood movies. Among the best known are “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,” which became “Blade Runner,” and “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” which became “Total Recall.” Unfortunately, he was paid very little for the screen rights; “Blade Runner” grossed $28 million, but Philip received a mere $1,250.
Anne has lectured at several universities, including the Sorbonne, about her knowledge of Philip Dick, but because she wrote about him in an earlier book, titled “The Search for Philip K. Dick, 1928-1982,” he appears as only an interlude in her new book.
Getting more attention is her first husband, the late Richard Rubenstein, who came from a prosperous family in St. Louis (where Anne lived after her father died when she was 4 years old). The two were married by a justice of the peace, and Anne candidly explains: “We must have thought that going to a justice of the peace wasn’t bourgeois but that a big fancy church wedding was. To be called ‘bourgeois’ in those days was an insult, but we certainly weren’t members of the proletariat either.”
Philip Dick would later turn out to be shy and occasionally paranoid, but Richard Rubenstein, who fathered her daughters Hatte, Jayne and Tandy, was troubled by severe anxiety.
From St. Louis, the couple moved to San Francisco. Anne writes:
“[A]s we drove across the country, Richard was too nervous to go into restaurants. I had to bring his dinner to him every night in our motel room. Not much fun.”
Indeed, life with Richard included many uncomfortable moments. When they moved into an apartment in San Francisco, they bought a large, “handsome” couch. “I spilled some ink on it,” Anne relates, “while trying to sit on Richard’s lap for some affectionate hugging.
“Richard became angry at me for spilling the ink and possibly also because I was trying to hug him. I think some men, maybe many, are fearful of intimacy with women, but they like sex with a woman—which they don’t seem to think of as intimacy.
“Richard didn’t converse. Period. If we went to a restaurant together, we just sat there….”
“Richard received a modest monthly income from a property his mother owned in Quincy, Illinois, which paid for food and rent. If we needed a new car, Richard’s mother would buy one for him. If we wanted to go on a trip, Richard’s mother would send money for the trip….
“I felt uncomfortable that Richard didn’t work and earn money, but there was nothing to be done about it. Richard felt he was too nervous to work.”
But Richard was an aspiring poet, and the only people he didn’t feel ill at ease around were other poets—and San Francisco’s bohemians. Fortunately, he and Anne arrived in the city just as the Beat Generation was coming into its own.
Richard started a poetry magazine; it lasted only one issue, but it put him in touch with such poets as Kenneth Rexroth, Dylan Thomas, Robert Creeley and Gary Snyder.
His mental health, however, was deteriorating, and while in a New England psychiatric clinic, he had an allergic reaction to an anti-schizophrenic medicine and “dropped dead while drinking copiously from the water fountain,” Anne writes.
“I don’t think he was schizophrenic. He was anxious and drank too much alcohol at times.”
At the end of the movie “Blade Runner,” an extraterrestrial android played by Rutger Hauer dies. Just before he does, Hauer bitterly tells actor Harrison Ford, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe—attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I’ve watched C-Beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All these moments will be lost in time like tears in rain .… Time to die.”
Anne Dick likewise has some remarkable memories, and she too doesn’t want them to be lost in time. “Anne and the Twentieth Century” engagingly preserves for her family, friends and the general public what she has seen of relationships, celebrities, West Marin, American culture and key events in a fascinating century.
Dave Mitchell was editor and publisher of The Point Reyes Light for 27 years before retiring 10 years ago.