Dreams trammeled by whims of the Heavenly Immortals, Rik Eliot perseveres.
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Rik controls daily chaos for his nieces and ailing mother. He’s a math teacher, handyman, and landlord of Chaos House, an aging mansion in 1983 Ashland, Oregon. Late at night, lonely, Rik finds solace finishing his dissertation on friendships in Hong Kong fight movies.
Then a renowned artist from Rik’s academic past arrives in town. Threads of Rik’s tautly organized life begin to unravel. The Heavenly Immortals are again sowing chaos, trouncing Rik’s yearning for deeper human connections.
Something has to give.
Chaos House paints a vivid picture of a small college town stuck in the post-Vietnam recession. Rik’s narrative, filled with wit and longing, tells a familiar story of the search of true friendship and family in a close-knit lesbian and gay community.
Content Warnings:
On-page scenes of emotional and homophobic parental abuse of adolescent children; parental abandonment at Christmas; details of subsequent trauma of adult children.
One on-page scene with threats of violence.
Off-page threats of power exchange dynamics.
Mild on-page swearing and references to past use of psychedelics.
Not a standard heteronormative HEA.
Praise and insights for Chaos House:
I feel such an affinity for Rik, the protagonist in Chaos House, that I can easily imagine Rik himself wrote this as a memoir. Despite curveballs thrown his way by the Heavenly Immortals, Rik perseveres while seeking what he’s always yearned for, a deep human connection and a trusted sense of home.
— Curt Colbert, author of The Rat City PI series
