Confessions of a Crap Artist
Philip K. Dick
 The novel’s protagonist, the “crap artist” of the title, is Jack Isidore, a socially awkward tire regroover obsessed with amateur scientific inquiry since his teens. He catalogs old science magazines, collects worthless objects, and believes disproved theories, such as the notions that the Earth is hollow or that sunlight has weight. Broke, Jack eventually moves in with his sister’s family in a luxurious farm house in suburban California. On the farm, Jack happily does housework and cares for livestock. He also joins a small apocalyptic religious group, which shares his belief in extra-sensory perception, telepathy and UFOs and believes the world will end on April 23, 1959. However, most of his time is dedicated to a meticulous “scientific journal” of life on the farm, including his sister’s marital difficulties. Jack’s sister, Fay Hume, is a difficult and subtly controlling woman who makes miserable everyone close to her, especially her misogynist husband Charley. Fay has an extramarital affair with a young grad student named Nat Anteil while Charley is in a hospital recovering from a heart attack. After Jack reports this to Charley, the latter plots to kill Fay. Charley kills Fay's animals and then commits suicide, realising that Fay has led him to do this. However, his will stipulates that Jack will inherit half the house, and Fay must buy her brother out, although Jack has used his half of the money to replace the slaughtered animals. Nat and his wife Gwen divorce, and Nat decides to stay with Fay. When the end of the world doesn't occur on the predicted date, Jack decides to seek psychiatric assistance.