The Broken Bubble
The Broken Bubble is an early mainstream novel by Philip K. Dick. It was written around 1956 under the longer title The Broken Bubble of Thisbe Holt, but publishers rejected it at the time. It was published posthumously in 1988 with the shorter title.
The story is set in mid-1950s California and follows two couples whose lives become tangled as they search for love and maturity. Jim Briskin is a classical music DJ. He and his ex-wife, Patricia Gray, still love each other but are divorced because Jim is sterile. They meet a younger married couple, Art and Rachael, and essentially swap partners. Patricia is drawn to the troubled Art, and their relationship turns abusive. Jim and Rachael grow closer, and Rachael suggests leaving Art and moving to Mexico so Jim can adopt her baby. In the end, the characters face reality and return to their original partners, choosing personal growth over easy fixes.
A minor character, Miss Thisbe Holt, appears only near the end. She is a stripper who performs at an optometrist convention, climbing into a large clear plastic ball for her act. The ball is later destroyed when drunken optometrists roll it around the hotel suite and push it off the roof.
The shorter title fits as a metaphor for the irreversible changes the main characters undergo. Jim Briskin is a name Dick reused in other works, including The Crack in Space, though that book is not connected to this one. The name also appears for a black news anchor in two of Dick’s short stories.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:34 (CET).