Mark Jay Mann began writing Homeless Mysteries, Homeless Intimacies in the late 1980s as he recognized the negative effects of the growing income equality on citizen's lives that was causing people getting stuck in meaningless low wage jobs, a lack of health care and homelessness. He completed the first draft of this novel at the beginning of the 1990s. He set it aside to pursue other projects. Then in 2011 he revised and self-published the novel as an eBook. He realized that unfortunately income inequality and the resulting issues of homelessness had not been addressed.
Gibson Calhoun is a 37-year old man who has lost his job, his house, his wife and all of his material possessions and ends up homeless on the streets of Portland, Oregon. Through his journal writing, he tries to understand the catastrophic changes that have happened to him. Gibson's story is set against the backdrop of an urban society at times harsh and dangerous, and at other times caring and hopeful, but still a society that is allowing more and more of its citizens to exist in meaningless, low wage jobs and in poverty, widespread systemic racial disparities and to become homeless.
Gibson feels he must remain on the streets, separate from others, even when he meets a woman to whom he is deeply attracted, and who owns an exotic second hand store and a theater company. She reaches out to him and talks him into working for her at the store for a few hours each week.
As Gibson struggles to survive as a homeless person, he is confronted by mysteries that challenge, confuse and frighten him, including the serial killings of other homeless men and women as they sleep on the streets at night. He has psychic visions of the killer, but does not know how to act on his suspicions without becoming one of the victims if he is correct.
He is also confronted with other strange and unsettling encounters, including the homeless man who shows him evidence of outer space aliens living in the city; another man who is an ex-CIA assassin who wants him to write his life story; a 16-girl who is afraid of becoming homeless and who attaches herself to him.
Homeless Mysteries, Homeless Intimacies is a novel about the healing power of love and intimacy. It is a story of the dramatic and transformative spiritual journey of a homeless man, and the potentials of dramatic creativity to heal and transform society to become more caring and inclusive.
