A Scanner Darkly
ISBN: 1400096901

A classic.

I didn’t get this novel though.

The blurb essentially sums it up — a narcotic officer who is simultaneously and unconsciously living the life of a drug dealer.

Abstract from NLBsearchplus.pl.sg:

A drug dealer of the future periodically moves away from his spaced-out world to become an informer for narcotics agents until he becomes unable to separate his two personalities.

That much was what I could gather by the end of the novel. And little else.

Chapter 13 (p209) reveals to the protagonist, Fred aka Bob Arctor, of his condition.

First published in 1977. Which I’m relating it to the novel’s drug culture setting. The author’s note (P276) cryptically refers to this drug culture aspect, if I read it correctly. For he lists several names of his friends, deceased or with “permanent psychosis” or “permanent brain damage” — resultant signs of drug overdoses.