Set This House in Order deleted scenes

 

What became of Irwin Manciple

Although the climax at the end of chapter 28 resolves all of Andrew and Penny’s immediate crises, their long-term prospects are still very much up in the air, and I knew I was going to have to spend a fair number of pages in the epilogue dealing with the aftermath of their road trip. At the same time, I also wanted to wrap up the stories of the secondary characters: Julie Sivik, Mrs. Winslow, and the Manciple brothers. Of course there wasn’t room to do all of this, and as the first draft of the epilogue ballooned past 50 pages, I knew I was going to have to do some serious cutting.

One of the first things to go during revision was a scene in which Andrew encounters a transformed Irwin Manciple at the Magic Mouse Toy Company, several months after the Reality Factory goes bust. I had this idea that after big brother Dennis went back to Alaska, Irwin would blossom into a cheerful extrovert. As much as I liked the concept—I always had a weird affection for Irwin, despite the fact that he’s not much of a character—the scene is so tangential to the main story arc that it was an obvious thing to get rid of. (Sorry, Irwin.)

Incidentally, Irwin’s offer of basketball tickets is a lead in to another scene that got cut, in which Andrew and Penny attend a Sonics game at Key Arena and end up making out on the way home. In the final draft, the Sonics game becomes a Lyle Lovett concert, and the description of their subsequent romance is significantly shortened.

“As I came in the store, I spotted Irwin Manciple over by the model trains. I almost didn’t recognize him. Like Penny’s apartment, he’d been redecorated: new clothes, new haircut, and contact lenses in place of the thick glasses he’d used to wear. Tinted contact lenses—his once brown eyes were now turquoise. And when I went and said hello to him, I found out it wasn’t just his appearance that had changed: it seemed like he’d had a personality transplant, too. He’d become talkative.

No, Irwin wasn’t literally a different person; this wasn’t late-onset MPD, though Adam made numerous jokes to that effect. What it mostly was, I thought, was the absence of Dennis; Irwin had finally gotten out on his own, really out on his own, and he was blossoming. He raved about his job with the game company: “They’ve got me working on the new Pokémon CCG! It’s so much fun!” (I didn’t know who Pokémon was, or what CCG stood for, but inside Jake perked up, and I sensed a possible change in the Christmas wish list.)

We talked until Irwin had to go; he gave me his new address and phone number so we could get together over the holiday. Then, just as he was about to walk out, he suddenly snapped his fingers and said, “Hey Andrew, do you like basketball?”

“I don’t know,” I said, not sure whether he meant playing it or watching it—I’d never done either.

“The reason I ask,” Irwin said, pulling out his wallet, “is I was given these tickets to the Sonics game on Friday, only now I can’t use them—my girlfriend and I are going up to Snoqualmie Pass for a ski weekend.”

Girlfriend? Ski weekend?

“That explains the new look,” Adam observed, from the pulpit. “I knew he didn’t buy those clothes himself.”

“...so anyway,” Irwin continued, “they’re really good seats, and it’d be a shame to let them go to waste. Do you think you could use them?”

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