By Josh Inocéncio
In his newest novel, Southernmost, Silas House confronts a changing Appalachia where even Asher Sharp—a fundamentalist preacher in Tennessee—questions his rigid moral beliefs, years after his brother comes out as gay and flees to Key West. And while House has a canon of work that candidly depicts Appalachian people (including the New York Times’ best-selling Clay’s Quilt), this is his first novel to tackle openly gay characters.
‘Southernmost’ will be published on June 5, 2018 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
Southernmost opens in the wake of a deluge that is drowning the Cumberland Valley. Justin Sharp—Asher and his wife Lydia’s eight-year-old son—loses his dog in the storm and insists on searching for him. But when a local gay couple, Jimmy and Stephen, help the Sharps look for the dog, Lydia and Asher argue whether to provide them with shelter as the two men have just lost their home to the flood. Asher argues to let them stay the night, citing the Book of Hebrews in his defense, while Lydia preoccupies herself with what their Pentecostal congregation would think. Jimmy and Stephen overhear the fight, and then promptly show themselves out into the reckless weather.
But as Asher’s remorse at not helping the men—or his brother Luke’s own coming out a decade prior—gnaws at his soul, he questions the kind of moral environment in which he wants to raise his own son. From this point, House captures the steady dissolution of man’s hardened beliefs as Asher stands up for what’s right to his congregants, leaves his wife, and then escapes with his son to Florida on a quest to find his brother, seeking not only forgiveness, but meaning for their lives.
Throughout Southernmost, there are just a few gay characters. But with each depiction, House defies expectations as to what gay southerners are like. For example, Jimmy and Stephen are country music songwriters—and they still attend church in the Cumberland Valley. Additionally, they speak with a local dialect that’s as country as Asher or anyone else. When Justin can’t find his dog amid the floodwaters, Jimmy glances down at the kid and says, “Poor little feller. He’s a sight, now, ain’t he?” Not to mention, by making the men songwriters who work with singers in Nashville, House gives a voice to the unseen culture of gay men and lesbians who are foundational for some of country music’s biggest stars. Far from casting Jimmy and Stephen as merely outsiders, House writes them as inextricably tied to the land and culture, just like the preacher’s family.
When Asher finally catches up with his brother, Luke, it is at an Episcopalian church in the Florida Keys—because his gay brother is now a minister. Instead of running away from faith, Luke merely departs the fundamentalism in rural Tennessee. But he finds faith nonetheless among Christians with a deeper understanding of “the Everything”—which House renders throughout when Justin has moments of solitude in nature.
And this is why House’s novel is critical, particularly to southern literature. Written in third person, the story is about a conservative, heterosexual man who must challenge everything he knows to pursue a new sense of what is right. By centering the story on Asher, House captures the mindset of many men (and women) in the South who have wrestled with the stampeding changes around LGBTQ equality. And, realistically, Asher expresses that he doesn’t know how he will react when he sees Luke holding another man’s hand, nor does he rush to be a religious spokesman at Pride events. However, he tries. And he realizes that there’s a deeper love that binds him and his brother, as well as with his son. He doesn’t find that deeper love in the narrow-minded churches around his hometown; rather, he seeks what’s right based on what is in his heart and in his conscience.
With Southernmost, House brings a much-needed message from a palatable point of view. It’s a novel that every gay southerner should read, and then hastily send to any of their kin still struggling with acceptance.
Southernmost, which will be published on June 5, 2018 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, can be found online or at most retail bookstores. You can learn more about author Silas House and his works at silas-house.com.
