Written in 1962 as The First in Our Family, it remained unpublished until appearing in serial form as A. Lincoln, Simulacrum in the November 1969 and January 1970 issues of Amazing Stories magazine, re-titled by editor Ted White.

The novel was issued as a mass market paperback original by DAW Books in 1972, its final title provided by publisher Donald A. Wollheim.

Rosen then attempts to sell the robot patents to Sam K. Barrows, an influential businessman who is opening up lunar real estate for purchase and colonization.

The remainder of the book deals with Louis Rosen's admission of schizophrenia and his Jungian therapeutic treatment at the Kasanin Centre in Kansas from where Pris was originally released.

Theodore Sturgeon gave We Can Build You a mixed review, praising Dick on the "handling of his characters, who are consistent and warmly recognizable even in their stubborn irrationalities, on the boldness and provocation of his themes [and] on the richness of his auctorial background and the sparkles of laughter finger-flicked all over his work."

[3] Dave Langford reviewed We Can Build You for White Dwarf #76, and stated that "Dick's underdog humour - little people against the world - is here, but overall it's a dark book.