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Loading... Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls (edition 2003)by Matt Ruff (Author)
Work InformationSet This House in Order by Matt Ruff
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This is a fictionalized version of the life of two people with multiple identity disorder. The author, in his acknowledgements, says that he used sources for his research, but he doesn't name any. Not having this disorder myself, or knowing anyone with it, I can't judge how accurate a potrayal of it his characters have. It does make a good story, and the reader is able to become fairly invested in the characterizations. ( ) Strange. I know I wrote a review of this many months ago but let me try to reconstruct. Spoilers noted. I learned a lot about multiple personality disorder, including that it is now referred to as dissociative identity disorder (DID). Ruff's main character, Andy Gage, who suffers from DID is compelling, and I loved the way the character deals with his subpersonalities, to whom Ruff has done justice. The different therapeutic approaches are interesting too. Great research, inventive story, I blame the publisher or editor. Somebody should have reeled Ruff in. ***Mild spoilers*** The rough Ruff stuff though: I simply could not buy that Julie would stumble upon not one but two people with DID in this town. Further, the Julie character is a mess, both her characterization and Ruff's characterization of her. Mouse/Penny? I liked the addition of this character aside from having been brought into the story via the Julie DID-whisperer. ***Bigger spoiler*** Then there's the very unnecessary business with Andy's landlord having lost her family to a harassing serial murderer. Why, Matt Ruff? And the car crash business with Andy being triggered by watching the guy abuse his kid. Too much. And the denouement with the rogue sheriff from the past. Nah, dude. Too much. Much much too much. Too over the top. https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3784740.html barely SFnal in that the viewpoint characters both have forms of multiple personality disorder, and the extent to which their different personalities have reality can be interpreted to different extents; but I found the Seattle setting thoroughly convincing, the characterisation engaging, and the gradual reveal of the twist ending very satisfying. I did wonder for the first half of the book how precisely it fulfilled the Tiptree Award mandate of exploring gender, but it all became clear on page 237. A worthy winner. Geniale. Questa è la parola che più si adatta a questo romanzo.Geniale l'idea di base, geniale l'intreccio, geniale la struttura narrativa. Un romanzo di crescita ma anche un Giallo che deve essere risolto su due piani della realtà, fuori e dentro la testa del protagonista affetto dalla sindrome delle personalità multiple.Scordatevi Patrick McGrath però, e fatevi avvolgere da una trama fantasiosa e affascinante. no reviews | add a review
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. No library descriptions found. |
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