In this stunning novel about judgment, courage, heartbreak, and change, author Silas House wrestles with the limits of belief and the infinite ways to love. In the aftermath of a flood that washes away much of a small Tennessee town, evangelical preacher Asher Sharp offers shelter to two gay men. In doing so, he starts to see his life anew—and risks losing everything: his wife, locked into her religious prejudices; his congregation, which shuns Asher after he delivers a passionate sermon in defense of tolerance; and his young son, Justin, caught in the middle of what turns into a bitter custody battle. With no way out but ahead, Asher takes Justin and flees to Key West, where he hopes to find his brother, Luke, whom he'd turned against years ago after Luke came out. And it is there, at the southernmost point of the country, that Asher and Justin discover a new way of thinking about the world, and a new way of understanding love. Southernmost is a tender and affecting book, a meditation on love, atonement, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
Author
Silas House is the nationally bestselling author of six novels—Clay's Quilt, 2001; A Parchment of Leaves, 2003; The Coal Tattoo, 2005; Eli the Good, 2009; Same Sun Here (co-authored with Neela Vaswani) 2012; Southernmost (2018), as well as a book of creative nonfiction, Something's Rising, co-authored with Jason Howard, 2009; and three plays. His work frequently appears in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Salon. He is former commentator for NPR's "All Things Considered". His writing has appeared in recently in Time, Ecotone, Oxford American, Garden and Gun, and many other publications. House serves on the fiction faculty at the Spalding School of Writing and as the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair at Berea College. As a music writer House has worked with artists such as Kacey Musgraves, Jason Isbell, Lee Ann Womack, Kris Kristofferson, Lucinda Williams, The Judds, Jim James, and many others. House is the recipient of three honorary doctorates and is the winner of the Nautilus Award, an EB White Award, the Storylines Prize from the New York Public Library/NAV Foundation, the Appalachian Book of the Year, and many other honors.
