Ostensibly this is a science fiction novel set in a world in which the Nazis won WWII and the west coast of the former USA is part of the Japanese Empire. In fact it is a mainstream novel about the lives of several people in California who just happen to live under that unusual circumstance. Beyond the hallucinatory stuff and nature of reality questions, the real essence of Philip Dick's fiction is stories about normal people living their everyday lives alongside some extraordinary alteration to the world.
