Set This House In Order

By Matt Ruff

Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association 2004 Book Award winner. 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. - from Publisher's Weekly

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.87 x 8.01 x 5.27
• Publisher: Perennial; (January 20, 2004)
• ISBN: 006095485X
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: 27,644

Book 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.

About the Author

Matt Ruff is not a multiple personality, but he is an obsessive personality, a condition for which he self-medicates with marriage to a patient woman. He is the author of two previous novels, Fool on the Hill and Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy. He lives in Seattle, Washington, in what is arguably the most beautiful apartment house in the city.