The House of William T. Frehling

infobox Book |
name = The House of William T. Frehling
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover, illustrated by Ksenia Kouvaeva.
author = Zack Green
illustrator =
cover_artist = Ksenia Kouvaeva
country = United States
language = English
series = The Trilogy of William T. Frehling
genre = Surrealism, Comedy, Absurdism
publisher = Lulu
release_date = January 13, 2007
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 156
isbn = ISBN 978-1-4303-0718-1 (first edition, paperback)
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The House of William T. Frehling" is a surrealistic comedy novel written by Zack Green and published in 2007. It is his first published work, and the first in The Trilogy of William T. Frehling. It takes elements of absurdist works such as "The Floating Opera" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and mixes in pop culture references, netspeak, and various other 21st century elements. The narrator makes constant interjections for comic value, and sometimes "takes control" of the reader, referring to a character in the second person who argues with the narrator at times.

Plot Summary

The protagonist of the novel, Rangsey Aaronson, is a young man just out of graduate school with a Ph.D. in art history. The reader first meets Rangsey as he is driving in a broken-down car to Frehling Estates, a gated community of duplex condominiums in "some generic town in Westchester." The only hint about which town that the reader is given is that the town is not Yonkers. In order to move into his new house in the Estates, Rangsey must get some papers signed by his landlord, William T. Frehling. However, upon stepping into Frehling's office, Rangsey is transported into "The House of William T. Frehling," which at first appears to be a large mansion. His first trip into the house goes well, with Rangsey finding Frehling's home office rather quickly and getting his papers signed. However, upon leaving, Rangsey discovers he had missed one paper, and must return. However, when returning to the room Frehling uses as his office, Rangsey finds a bottomless pit.

Rangsey leaves the office and begins exploring the house in an attempt to find Frehling. He soon meets up with Tara, a young woman who teaches Rangsey how to "leave," a form of teleportation. She explains that the only way to get out of some places is by leaving, which makes perfect sense to her but baffles Rangsey until he finds himself teleported to a different location against his will. Before this teleportation occurs, Rangsey learns from Tara that because he is from a "different house," or the real world, he is a "Neighbor."

Eventually meeting up with Tara once again, Rangsey enlists her help in finding Frehling, and they set off in their quest, but not before turning into a watery substance and traveling through a plumbing system and raining down into an occupied shower.

Meanwhile, the reader is introduced to the Zimbo Excelerator Corporation and its CEO, the man with three eyes under his nose, who is constantly referred to by the narrator with this long winded title and by no other name throughout the entire novel. He has a love affair with cedar objects. His assistant, Miles Johnson, informs the man with three eyes under his nose that a Neighbor has breached the house. The man with three eyes under his nose instructs his board members to find the Neighbor and kill it. After this demand, Johnson informs the man with three eyes under his nose that a man named Rangsey Aaronson has been expressing strange leaving patterns. The man with three eyes under his nose declares that "nobody cares about Rangsey Aaronson."

Frustrated with Tara's unstable, surprise-laden handling of their search, Rangsey snaps at her, causing her to burst into tears and deprecate herself. After a short discussion, they reconcile, with Rangsey cheering her up and restoring her self-esteem. After getting a meal in a cafeteria, the pair winds up surrounded by blue orangutans.

At this point, Green takes a detour from the story with a short chapter called "The Opinions Expressed In This Chapter Are Not Those Of Zack Green," sarcastically stating that the Bush administration is doing a wonderful job, all liberals are evil, and all gays should die, among other things that Green disagrees with.

Returning to the story, Tara and Rangsey find themselves leaving to various different strange environments in rapid succession, until finally settling down in a hotel room, where Rangsey asks her how she is able to manage when her location is constantly changing. Her answer is cryptic.

Eventually, after many narrow escapes from the Zimbo Excelerator board of directors, a random explosion separates the two. Rangsey is afraid and discouraged, but the disembodied head of Morgan Freeman encourages him to press on. Nonetheless, he begins to break down, lamenting about how he simply wanted a life. At this point, Green abandons all hope of creating drama in his novel and skips over the resolution to this conflict.

After a fit of amnesia, Rangsey loses his papers, which are discovered by Johnson and brought to the Zimbo Excelerator offices and determined to be contaminated by a Neighbor. Frehling's name is seen on them, and he is accused of being in league with the Neighbors by the man with three eyes under his nose.

Rangsey and Tara end up outside the offices, and are instantly surrounded by Zimbo Excelerator police. The police dive on Rangsey and remove a tick from his back - this is the elusive Neighbor. However, upon asking about his papers and finding Frehling, the man with three eyes under his nose begins to suspect Frehling has tainted Rangsey.

Tara and Rangsey take matters into their own hands and steal the papers. After a lengthy chase, the two are captured and taken into a helicopter. However, Johnson rebels against the man with three eyes under his nose, shooting him six times. The helicopter then crashes, and Rangsey and Tara are separated, with Rangsey finding himself on "the roof."

Rangsey searches the roof, and soon finds himself in a morbid, blood-drenched version of his previous experiences. Eventually, he falls off the side of the roof, and continues falling until he encounters Tara. She tells him to get a grip and leave. He leaves to Frehling's office. Frehling signs the remaining paper and assures Rangsey he is in New Jersey, not a parallel universe.

A year after his return to the real world, Rangsey drives through the Holland Tunnel toward a job interview for a consulting firm in Trenton, and ends up right back in Frehling's office as soon as he crosses into New Jersey. Frehling tells him to get a grip on his life and do what he went to school for. He says to Rangsey that if he doesn't like where he is, just leave. He makes a short monologue referencing various previous events of the book, using them as metaphors for real life. Green laments that he just gave everything in the book deep meaning.

The novel ends as Rangsey bumps into Tara in the real world, and it ends on a note suggesting romance between them in the future.

Trivia

*The overall concept came to Green in a dream.
*"Zimbo Excelerator" came from a typo on Green's seventh grade school supply list. "Apparently it must have been a placeholder on a template that someone forgot to delete," says Green. "We went to about eight stores asking about Zimbo Excelerators before realizing this."
*Tara's hair color was never specified until Green saw the cover art Kouvaeva gave to him. He rewrote parts of the book to reflect this.
*Originally Green didn't give Rangsey amnesia about attacking Darrin Kirk Miller, the man in the rabbit costume. "My mother told me the scene was too violent and made Rangsey seem like a psychopath, so I took it out in agreement," he says.
*"The reference to Tara going into the bathroom to smoke glass is probably going to be a running joke in my fiction," says Green. It first appeared in his unpublished first novel "XTX: Red".
*Green never had a theme of referring to the sun at the beginning of everything he wrote until this book. "XTX: Red" began this way as well, as will his upcoming novel "Ytterbium" and the next two William T. Frehling novels.
*The novel is actually technically novella-length. This is why Green calls it "something resembling a novel."
*The Persephone's Razorblade song was originally a song Green was writing for his theoretical band to sing to make fun of emo.
*The scene with the white chocolate originally contained more homophobic language. Green changed it after coming out as gay.
*Kenneth the bouncer fox's name was originally Kaihaku, but Green "changed that to avoid making the furry fandom seem too Japanese." [ [http://www.plankhead.com Plankhead.com] (Under Books -> The House of William T. Frehling)]

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.plankhead.com Zack Green's Website]