avid Selig is a contemporary middle-aged man living an undistinguished life in New York City. But he is different. He is a telepath, capable of reading the thoughts of others. His singular ability has been the defining factor in his life, providing much of his fragile sense of self-worth. It has also been his primary source of estrangement, anguish and guilt. Now his ability is fading, and he faces a new life without both the benefit and burden of knowing what others are thinking.
Throughout his childhood, David was considered strange, his abilities misinterpreted by his parents and other adults. He learned early to hide his talent, but he was never able to establish normal relationships with family or peers. As a young man, his estrangement grew as his only significant relationships with women ended badly, both times due to his extrasensory abilities. His younger sister, adopted by his parents at the suggestion of a child psychologist, grew to hate him.
David has met only one other person who has his strange ability, a cold, amoral older man who has used his powers to be a successful Wall Street investor and a sexual predator of women. David spends several years as the man's protege before a tragic betrayal ends their relationship. David himself tries working as an investment broker, but he is too honest and sensitive, unable to tolerate the cynical minds of his professional peers. In middle age, David, an educated intellectual, is barely making enough money to survive by ghost-writing college term papers. Even that career is ended when he is beaten up by a group of student athletes.
As David's powers are fading, he looks forward with anxiety and dread at losing the ability that has defined his meager existence. An improving relationship with his sister, however, provides some hope that David might be able to continue or even prosper despite the loss.
SF's premier novel of character
Dying Inside is perhaps science fiction's greatest pure novel of character. It is composed of vignettes from the life of a sympathetic but very dysfunctional man. David Selig is an anti-hero typical of the ineffectual protagonists found in SF novels in the New Wave period of the late '60s and early '70s. He is the antithesis of the ultra-competent hero of most SF.
Selig's power to read minds brings him very few moments of true happiness. He has been estranged since early childhood from both his peers and family, and seems trapped in an alienated and adolescent angst. He is never able to develop the cynical, thick-skinned defenses that would be needed to cope with knowing what everyone is truly thinking.
The novel is compelling, however, despite its lack of plot or heroic protagonist. Silverberg manages to make Selig sympathetic, and his plight interesting. The tales of his early childhood, his two short love affairs that ended tragically, his relationship with the older telepath, even his sales of college term papers, are fascinating stories. At the end of the novel, Silverberg provides a needed touch of affirmation. Although David is losing his powers, he may be moving toward reconciling relations with his sister, and moving toward a more normal and happier life.
Dying Inside is unlike the vast majority of science fiction novels, but one that every serious SF fan should read.
