Set This House in Order

Set This House in Order:

A Romance of Souls

trade paperback reprint published 2004 by Harper Perennial

jacket design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich; jacket photograph by Richard Bradley; book design by Joseph Rutt

Available from Amazon.com

A New York Times Notable Book

2003 James Tiptree, Jr. Award winner

2004 PNBA Book Award winner

2004 Washington State Book Award winner

Nominated for the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Synopsis:

“I suppose I should tell you about the house…The house, along with the lake, the forest, and Coventry, are all in Andy Gage’s head, or what would have been Andy Gage’s head if he had lived. 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…”

Andrew Gage was “born” just two years ago, called into being to serve as the public face of a multiple personality. While Andrew deals with the outside world, over a hundred other souls share an imaginary house inside his head, struggling to maintain an orderly coexistence: Aaron, the father-figure, who makes the rules; Adam, the mischievous teenager, who breaks them; Jake, the frightened little boy; Aunt Sam, the artist; Seferis, the defender; and Gideon, the dark soul, who wants to get rid of Andrew and the others and run things on his own.

Andrew’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 Andrew for help, he reluctantly agrees, setting in motion a chain of events that threatens to destroy the stability of his house. Now Andrew and Penny must work together to uncover a terrible secret that Andrew has been keeping from himself…

To read the first four chapters of Set This House in Order online, click here.

Excerpts from this novel also appear in the first James Tiptree Award Anthology.

A Web-Braille format version of this book is available here.