Reading Group Guide
Introduction
I was called to finish the job that my father had begun:
a job that he had chosen, but that I was made for.
On a daily basis, Andrew Gage struggles to maintain order with more than a hundred other personalities … other "souls" … in his head. He has been created for the sole purpose of running the body while the others live in a geography that exists only in his mind. Aaron, the soul who was in charge prior to Andrew and the one that he calls "father," constructed the imaginary house in a countryside setting where all the souls could exist together peacefully.
While Aaron manages the landscape inside, Andrew manages to have a functional, although somewhat cluttered, life on the outside. He does allow his other souls to take over for short periods of time: Jake, a five year boy, likes to brush his teeth; Seferis, the defender, enjoys his morning sit-ups; Aunt Sam, the artist, prefers hot showers, while perceptive yet mischievous Adam needs cold ones. But there is one soul that is not allowed time outside. Gideon, Aaron's brother, has been exiled to an island set apart from the house, apart from the other souls.
Working as a virtual reality consultant, Andy meets another lost soul, computer programmer Penny Driver (a.k.a. Mouse). Their boss Julie believes they would make a perfect match and asks Andy to help Penny confront her own multiple personality disorder -- something that she is only vaguely aware of. Blackouts, waking up in strange clothes in even stranger places, finding daily to-do lists, and receiving letters from The English Society of International Correspondents all serve as constant reminders toPenny that she is not normal. Consumed by paranoia and tragically low self-esteem, Penny is unable to accept Andy's help at first. But her other souls do. Thread, Maledicta, and Malefica take turns pushing Penny closer to the edge of reality until she finally agrees to see Andrew's doctor, Danielle Grey.
Once Andrew and Penny spend more time together, and each of their personalities is introduced, they piece together valuable information about each other and themselves. As they set out on their chaotic journey to unveil hidden truths from Andrew's past, terrifying and heartbreaking memories begin to surface -- memories of the events that forever shattered both characters; memories that explain the shards left behind.
What should be a very confusing novel -- a story about, and told by, someone with multiple personality disorder -- is, in fact, "irresistible" (New York Times Book Review) "addictive" (Portland Oregonian), and "a stunning feat of literary craftsmanship" (San Francisco Chronicle).
Discussion Questions
- The author tells us from the first page "that a good storyteller only reveals important information a little at a time, to keep the audience interested." Did he succeed?
- "Part of knowing who I am is knowing why I am, and I've always known who I am, from the first moment" (page2). Andrew's ease with his disorder changes drastically when he falls into the lake giving up control of the body. By the end of the novel, does he return to his earlier confidence? Or is his security forever shaken?
- Discuss any hidden meanings in the characters' names in the novel: Andy Gage, Penny Driver, Gideon, Thread, Maledicta, Malefica, Xavier, and Seferis.
- What does Andy tell us is "an inevitable side effect of multiplicity"?
- In Andy Gage's mind, his "father controlled the weather inside the geography. He did not control the mist" (page 97). Why do you think that is?
- "Unlike many of the other souls in the house, I was never raped or molested" (page 118). Do you think Andrew's distance from his abuse makes him a good narrator?
- How did Penny keep her mother from reading her letters from the "Society"?
- Mrs. Winslow, Andy's landlord, and Julie Sivik, Andy's boss, offer him stability and security. But how are the women different from each other? Are they each other's foils?
- Discuss the two cellar doors -- the one from Penny's Trash Town, and the one in Andy's mind -- and what is hidden behind them.
- Why is it that Aaron, Andrew's father, doesn't want to talk to Dr. Grey?
- How is the storyline of Warren Lodge crucial to this novel?
- "Does it really matter so much? I mean it's still me … " (page 238). Did you see any clues as to Andrew's true physical identity before it was revealed?
- What event sends Andrew into the lake allowing Gideon to take control of the body?
- What alliances -- between Andrew's personalities and Penny's personalities -- are formed?
- "Here I sleep but for a while until I am called up again into my Father's house" (page 357). Discuss the layers of irony here and the revelation of horror that follows.
- What is Gideon afraid of and why?
- Why does Chief Bradley want to buy Andy's house?
- How is Chapter 29 significant to the reader?
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.
Read a Sample Chapter
Chapter One
I met Penny Driver two months after my twenty-eighth birthday -- or two months after my second birthday, depending on how you want to count it.
Jake was up first that morning, as he is most mornings, barreling out of his room around sunrise, thundering down the stairs to the common room, the clamor of his progress setting off a chain reaction of wakings among the other souls in the house. Jake is five years old, and has been since 1973, when he was born from the wreckage of a dead soul named Jacob; he is a mature five, but still basically a little kid, and not very good about respecting other people's need for quiet.
Jake's stomping roused Aunt Sam, who started up cursing; and Aunt Sam's cursing woke Adam, who has the room next to hers; and Adam, who is old enough to respect other people's need for quiet, but often chooses not to, let out a series of war whoops until my father banged on the wall and told him to knock it off. By then, everyone was awake.
I might have tried to ignore it. Unlike the others, I don't sleep in the house, I sleep in the body, and when you're in the body, even the loudest house-noises are just echoes in Andy Gage's head that can be tuned out at will -- unless they come from the pulpit. But Adam knows this, of course, and whenever I do try to oversleep, he's out on the pulpit in no time, crowing like a rooster until I take the hint. Some days I make him crow himself hoarse, just to remind him who's boss; but on this particular morning, my eyes were open as soon as Jake hit the stairs.
The room where I slept -- where the body slept -- was in a renovated Victorian in Autumn Creek, Washington,twenty-five miles east of Seattle. The Victorian belonged to Mrs. Alice Winslow, who had first taken my father on as a boarder back in 1992, before I even existed.
We rented part of the first floor. The space was large but cluttered, clutter being an inevitable side effect of multiplicity, even if you make an effort to keep real-world possessions to a minimum. Just lying there in bed, and without even turning my head, I could see: Aunt Sam's easel, brushes, and paints, and two blank canvases; Adam's skateboard; Jake's stuffed panda; Seferis's kendo sword; my books; my father's books; Jake's little shelf of books; Adam's Playboy collection; Aunt Sam's stack of art prints; a color television with remote that used to be my father's but now belonged to me; a VCR that was three-fifths mine, three-tenths Adam's, and one-tenth Jake's (long story); a CD player that was one-half mine, one-quarter my father's, one-eighth Aunt Sam's, and one-sixteenth apiece Adam's and Jake's (longer story); a rack of CDs and videotapes of various ownerships; and a wheeled hamper of dirty clothes that no one wanted to lay claim to, but was mostly mine.
That's what I could see without even looking around; and besides the bedroom, there was a sitting room, a big walk-in closet, a full bathroom that was full in more ways than one, and the kitchen that we shared with Mrs. Winslow. The kitchen wasn't so cluttered, though; Mrs. Winslow cooked most of our meals for us, and strictly limited our personal food storage to one shelf in the refrigerator and two shelves in the pantry.
I got us out of bed and into the bathroom to start the morning ritual. Teeth came first. Jake really enjoys brushing for some reason, so I let him do it, stepping back into the pulpit and giving him the body. I stayed alert. Jake, as I've mentioned, is a child; but Andy Gage's body is adult and five-foot-seven, and hangs on Jake's soul like a suit of clothes many sizes too big. He moves clumsily in it, and often misjudges the distance between his extremities and the rest of the world; and as we've only got the one skull between us, if he bends over to get a dropped toothpaste cap and bashes his head on the corner of the sink, it is a group tragedy. So I kept a close eye on him.
This morning there were no accidents. He did his usual thorough job of brushing: side to side, up and down, getting every tooth, even the tricky ones in back. I wish he could handle the flossing as well, but that's a little too dexterous for him.
I took the body back and had a quick squat on the toilet. This is my job most mornings, though my father occasionally asks to do it -- the pleasure of a good shit, he says, being one of the few things he misses from outside. Adam also volunteers sometimes, usually just after the latest Playboy has arrived; but I generally don't indulge him more than once or twice a month, as it upsets the others.
After the toilet came exercise. I stretched out on the bath mat beside the tub and let Seferis run through his routine: two hundred sit-ups followed by two hundred push-ups, the last hundred evenly divided between the right and left arms. I came back from the pulpit to muscle burn and a lather of sweat, but I didn't complain. The body's stomach is as flat as a washboard, and I can lift heavy things.
Next I gave Adam and Aunt Sam two minutes each under the shower, starting with Aunt Sam. They used to alternate who went first, but Aunt Sam likes the water a lot warmer than Adam does, and Adam was always “forgetting” to adjust the temperature control ...
Set This House in Order. Copyright © by Matt Ruff. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
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