Review of a Short Science Fiction Story Phillip Jose Farmer – THE Alley MAN

 1969 Mercury Press. Included in the Mammoth Book Of Science Fiction Short Novels. 1986 Mammoth Press.

I can’t say I was ever a great fan of Farmer’s work. Many people swear by the Riverworld series of fantasy novels and stories or his very odd and mercifully obscure book, Jesus On Mars, in which Heaven appears to be Mars.

I was therefore surprised to find this story is a genuine gold nugget, a novella beginning in comedy and ending in a much more serious tone. (Spoiler warnings apply).

Dorothy, a sociologist, sets out to study Paley, a back alley garbage sifter, who appears to be a modern day 1970’s Neanderthal man. Is he for real? He certainly has the look of such a figure but is he a product of inbreeding or the real deal? Are the beliefs he carries from what he considers an oral history tradition just his drunken delusions? Are his violent mood swings a product of the influence on our own literature about Neanderthals? He beats his wife and friends, has a high sex drive and need, etc, but is that because it is what is expected by the ‘False folk’ (Homosapians).

Dorothy stays at Paley’s house, where his shrewd intellect is above that of the hillbillies he lives with, people who consider themselves literate because they know how to watch TV.

Paley sifts alley garbage and buy second hand junk for a living, but he is after more than money. He has a dream that he will find a magic hat once owned by the king of his tribe, and gain great power from it. Dorothy makes a fake hat to its specifications and has Paley find it, and the story takes its shift to a dark dramatic finale from there on in. The ambiguity about his true nature is maintained throughout.

A story with great dialogue, snappy humour and fever-pitched excitement too. My faith in Farmer is greatly restored.

Arthur Chappell