Dan Boyle discusses and signs his new novel Housecleaning November 14, 2007

Housecleaning, Dan Boyle’s novel about a gay scientist’s attempt to unravel the secrets of the universe while caring for his dementia-suffering, time-warped mother, has been released by The Haworth Press this month.

Part family drama, part gay love story, part science fact/fantasy—is a major departure from Boyle’s first book, Huddle, which follows the lives of nine gay men both on the field and off as they vie for the West Los Angeles Flag Football Championship.

“I’ve always been fascinated by how scientists seek God by studying the Universe, as if the two are interchangeable,” Boyle said. “I wrote Housecleaning as a method of self-discovery, and the story led me on a journey about why we are here and whether there could possibly be a common consciousness that we all share, if we know how to look for it.”

Other award-winning authors are praising Housecleaning for its inventive story line and strong cast of characters.

“Boyle constructs a vast tapestry of interconnectedness, leading from the festering resentments inherent in family life to the grand sweep of history, and the fate of nations; from an examination of the smallest particles of matter as revealed through quantum physics, to string theory, black holes and the acceleration of the universe,” writes Trebor Healey,” winner of the Ferro-Grumley and Violet Quill Awards in gay fiction for the novel Through It Came Bright Colors . “It is full of wonder, love and the noble struggle of people to inquire into and understand their world.”

“Dan Boyle has done the impossible; he has written a novel about everything important in the universe,” writes Marshall Moore, author of An Ideal for Living, The Concrete Sky and Black Shapes in a Darkened Room. “Housecleaning is a joy and a revelation and a discovery, like a tiny, perfect galaxy filled with warmth and hope and light.”

In Housecleaning, Caltech physicist Tom Flaherty’s mother is suffering from dementia that causes her to journey back into earlier periods of her life, especially when she is cleaning the house and finding personal items that trigger her memory. But Maude Flaherty’s travels – from the Scopes Monkey trial in 1925 to the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963 – might be the evidence Tom needs to develop a unified theory of space, time and place, and also to reconnect with a society that he’s lost touch with since the murder of his partner Ken 10 years ago in South Africa.
As Tom attempts to determine what is happening to Maude, the sense of wonder that disappeared after Ken’s murder returns, and his renewed quest for the meaning of life leads him into the national spotlight.

Dan Boyle is a Los Angeles-based author and a native of Washington state. Housecleaning, set primarily in Seattle and Spanaway Lake ( a suburb of Tacoma) also captures the beauty of the Pacific Northwest and the sensibility of its people and culture.

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