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annathepiperMatt Ruff pulls off a Herculean task in Set This House in Order: telling a story that involves not one but two characters with MPD, and juggles the interactions between not only the front-facing personalities of both, but many of the other personalities in their heads as well. And the amazing thing is, he does this while not only getting the general way a multiple's head works right, but also walking a delicate line between having the trauma suffered by the characters in their pasts inform the story and having it overwhelm it.
Andrew Gage is the front personality of a stable collective in Seattle, with a life that's more or less in order, when his boss at the software company where he works hires a second person with MPD, Penny Driver--hoping on the sly that the two of them will click and that Andrew can provide guidance for Penny, who is only partially aware of her MPD. The first stretch of the book is about exactly this, with Andrew bringing Penny to his therapist and helping her get a handle on her own condition. But as he does, other events make Andrew have to confront parts of his own past--which has been obscured even from the older personalities in his collective.
This book is at times tragic, at others poignantly humorous, and especially in the second half, painfully compelling. I'll say right out that it's difficult to follow if you're not paying active attention; the reader must keep track of when Andrew's and Penny's respective personalities are out and when they're not, and which of them is interacting with which. There are questions of physical gender that confuse the issue as well (and which are nevertheless still entirely appropriate to how a collective may actually work). And for readers with any history of trauma of their own, it is potentially triggery. But I'll also say that the potentially triggery material is delicately and deftly handled. The ending is appropriate, upbeat without being overly sentimental. Five stars.
Andrew Gage is the front personality of a stable collective in Seattle, with a life that's more or less in order, when his boss at the software company where he works hires a second person with MPD, Penny Driver--hoping on the sly that the two of them will click and that Andrew can provide guidance for Penny, who is only partially aware of her MPD. The first stretch of the book is about exactly this, with Andrew bringing Penny to his therapist and helping her get a handle on her own condition. But as he does, other events make Andrew have to confront parts of his own past--which has been obscured even from the older personalities in his collective.
This book is at times tragic, at others poignantly humorous, and especially in the second half, painfully compelling. I'll say right out that it's difficult to follow if you're not paying active attention; the reader must keep track of when Andrew's and Penny's respective personalities are out and when they're not, and which of them is interacting with which. There are questions of physical gender that confuse the issue as well (and which are nevertheless still entirely appropriate to how a collective may actually work). And for readers with any history of trauma of their own, it is potentially triggery. But I'll also say that the potentially triggery material is delicately and deftly handled. The ending is appropriate, upbeat without being overly sentimental. Five stars.
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Date: 2009-03-04 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-04 06:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-04 08:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-04 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-04 03:31 pm (UTC)Again, I think this stuff was delicately handled, but it is there, so I'd recommend any reader with their own history of trauma be prepped for that going in.
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Date: 2009-03-04 03:32 pm (UTC)