Set This House in Order
A Romance of Souls
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4.5 • 53 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Andy Gage was born in 1965 and murdered not long after by his stepfather. . . . It was no ordinary murder. Though the torture and abuse that killed him were real, Andy Gage's death wasn't. Only his soul actually died, and when it died, it broke in pieces. Then the pieces became souls in their own right, coinheritors of Andy Gage's life. . . .
While Andy deals with the outside world, more than a hundred other souls share an imaginary house inside Andy's head, struggling to maintain an orderly coexistence: Aaron, the father figure; Adam, the mischievous teenager; Jake, the frightened little boy; Aunt Sam, the artist; Seferis, the defender; and Gideon, who wants to get rid of Andy and the others and run things on his own.
Andy's new coworker, Penny Driver, is also a multiple personality, a fact that Penny is only partially aware of. When several of Penny's other souls ask Andy for help, Andy reluctantly agrees, setting in motion a chain of events that threatens to destroy the stability of the house. Now Andy and Penny must work together to uncover a terrible secret that Andy has been keeping . . . from himself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Part suspense, part literary coming-of-age story, this unusual novel follows a 29-year-old man with multiple personality disorder a departure for Ruff, whose last book, Sewer, Gas & Electric, was a futuristic political satire. Andy Gage's psyche was destroyed at age three by his abusive stepfather, and from its fragments arose a crowd of personalities vying for control of his body. When the novel opens, the body has just been taken over by 26-year-old Andrew. Andrew's father, Aaron, had been in charge for years, but grew exhausted from the effort of keeping peace among the different "souls," which include sarcastic, horny 15-year-old Adam; five-year-old Jake; gentle Aunt Sam; and the violent, narcissistic Gideon, whom Aaron banished from the "house." Shy, intelligent Andrew, the narrator, is now trying to give Andy Gage a normal life. He finds a job at a software company in Seattle and makes friends with his sympathetic boss, Julie. This stability is threatened, however, when Andrew meets self-destructive Penny, whose own multiple personalities are in a state of chaos. Trying to help Penny get her "Society" under control, Andrew is thrown momentarily off guard, and Gideon seizes the body. In cahoots with Penny's foul-mouthed twin souls, Maledicta and Malefica, Gideon heads for Andy's home state of Michigan for a gripping showdown with important figures from his past. Ruff never lets the material become lurid, and his matter-of-fact depiction of the relationships between different personalities is remarkable for its imaginative details. Though he takes his hero seriously, Ruff offers plenty of comic situations as Andrew tries to interact with the outside world while the other souls kibbitz. Best of all is the endearing Andrew, a truly original protagonist.
Customer Reviews
Best since Fool on the hill
Best novel from Ruff since his awesome Fool on the Hill novel. I was completely absorbed in this book.