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    Southernmost
    Southernmost
    Southernmost
    Audiobook8 hours

    Southernmost

    Written by Silas House

    Narrated by Charlie Thurston

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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 and its consequences.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJun 26, 2018
    ISBN9781684411856
    Southernmost
    Author

    Silas House

    Silas House is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, one book of creative nonfiction, and three plays. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Advocate, Time, Garden & Gun, and other publications. A former commentator for NPR's All Things Considered, House is the winner of the Nautilus Award, the Storylines Prize from the NAV/New York Public Library, an E. B. White Honor, and many other awards.

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    Reviews for Southernmost

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      I didn't like it as much as I hoped I would.
    • 5/5
      This is a wonderful story and great writing. Explains the challenges for the LGBT person living in the Bible belt from the preacher's point of view.
    • 5/5
      One of the endings I thought the most logical happened.

      What I didn't seem coming had to do with his brother. What a great story.
    • 3/5
      Southernmost by Silas House displays religion and love in bright contrast. The novel shows the hatred of homosexual couples in rural Tennessee and the absence of extreme hatred in Key West, Florida. Asher Sharpe, a Tennessee preacher defends a homosexual couple in his congregation and in the process loses his church and his son. In a moment of rashness, Asher kidnaps his son and heads to Key West in hopes of locating his estranged brother. Silas House beautifully describes the flooding in Tennessee and the beauty of Key West. Key West holds many troubled souls: Luke, Asher’s brother, Bell, Asher’s landlady, and Evona, another worker for Bell, and Justin, Asher’s son. So much symbolism in the book: the flooding, the sky, the birds, and the poetry. A wonderful way to spend a dreary day.
    • 5/5
      Southernmost, Silas House author; Charlie Thurston, narratorAsher Sharp is a preacher in Tennessee. After a terrible flood, his son Justin runs away to find their dog Roscoe. When he returns, he brings home two gay men, men who have helped save some of Asher’s own parishioners from the raging, rising waters. This simple gesture of kindness horrifies his wife, Lydia. She considers the men an abomination and while she will feed them, she does not want them to attend Asher’s church or to be around Justin.However, Asher has an epiphany, at this time, because of the tragic flood. In the past, his mother had rejected his own gay brother. Because of his religious beliefs and his wife’s insistence., he did the same. Now he is agonizing about that decision and is tormented by it. Guilt and shame fill him. He wants to welcome the gay men. He and Lydia argue about it, and she is relentless. She begs him to see it her way. She won’t bring those men into her son’s life or her church.Justin is small for his nine years. He is sensitive, and Lydia believes he feels too much. She thinks it isn’t right for boys to be so sensitive. She has secretly been taking him to a psychiatrist. When Asher discovers this, he is furious. He does not want his son treated for caring too much or being emotional and thoughtful. Justin is wiser than his years and seems older. He does not want him given drugs to change him. When Asher supports bringing the gay men into the church, he is voted out and replaced as Pastor. After he is terminated, Asher addresses the parishioners and reprimands them for rejecting the stranger.. Someone films hIs outburst and the video goes viral on utube. It makes him look like not only has he lost his way, but he has also had an emotional breakdown. Asher leaves Lydia and moves into a trailer. Lydia is very hurt and angry. When she begins to restrict Asher’s visits with Justin, he panics. His love for his son is overwhelming, and he won’t consider losing him. When Lydia demands supervised visits, he suffers through them, but when she sues for full custody and wins, Asher reaches the end of his rope. He cannot imagine seeing his son so infrequently, even without supervision. He decides to kidnap him. Asher runs to Key West in search of his brother Luke. He wants forgiveness for his past behavior toward him and believes he and Justin will be safe there.This is the story of a broken man trying to knit himself together again. It is a story about conversion therapy for gay men, without directly saying it. It is a story that confronts homophobia head-on with honesty and insight. It is a story about a little child caught in the middle because he shows signs of softness, and although it is never said directly, one gets the feeling his mom, Lydia, believes he has gay tendencies which must be cleansed from him. This is a story about learning to accept difference. It is filled with irony. It is this child, Justin, who will embody the hope that will lead them out of the wilderness. He believes in “the everything”!
    • 4/5
      When you hold a belief so close to the very core of who you are, when it helps define not only you but the community around you, it can be painful to question it, and even more so to change it. In Silas House's latest novel, Southernmost, revivalist minister Asher Sharp's questioning of a foundational piece of himself will finish off his marriage, put him at odds with his community, and drive him to an act of desperation.After the Supreme Court legalizes same sex marriage, the Cumberland River in Tennessee floods, wreaking devastation and causing loss of life. Asher's congregation sees this as God's judgment for the decision so even after a newly arrived gay couple saves the life of a congregant and his daughter the congregation is unwilling to let go of their belief that homosexuality is wrong. Asher, however, has been having questions about the teachings of his faith for a while and this show of humanity pushes him even further. When he gives a sermon and tries to welcome the men into the community, the sermon goes viral and he is fired from his job. In the face of community-wide disapproval and pushed to desperation by the thought that his wife Lydia, soon to be his ex-wife, will keep their young son Justin from him at all costs, Asher kidnaps the nine-year old and flees to Key West with him, in hopes of finding his long estranged brother Luke, the brother he once disavowed because of Luke's homosexuality.The novel is one of discovery, of a faith journey in direct opposition to what Asher had always been told was the word of the Lord, of an embracing of love in whatever form it takes, of finding grace, heartwarming and thoughtful. Change comes to Asher slowly, and once on the road to Florida, this halting change is intermingled with his fears of being found. His perspective changes through the abused dog he and Justin adopt, through witnessing Justin's innocent and trusting faith, and through the unquestioning acceptance of the people surrounding them in Key West. He grapples with the wide gulf between what he has been taught and has taught others as a preacher himself and what he is coming to see is the right way to treat others. As he wrestles with his own spirituality and a personal belief in what is right and what is wrong, he also has to look at his own life, not just disavowing his brother so many years before, but the violence he has perpetrated on his mother-in-law, and the worry and terror his taking of their son must have inflicted on Lydia. The novel is very often an internal one as Asher goes through the scary process of confronting and possibly changing this very basic belief he's long carried. Allowing a faith to evolve is not smooth or easy and there are bumps along the way but they make the whole process and Asher as a character more believable. While most of the chapters are untitled, several scattered throughout the novel are titled "The Everything." These particular chapters encapsulate a lesson or lessons that Asher might already know but needs to be reminded of. They give him a glimpse into what is right and what is in his own heart. The pacing of the novel is slow and contemplative with it taking almost half of the story to even get to the journey to Florida but that measured pace keeps the focus on the internal journey Asher is taking. This is a touching and beautifully written novel that may not change minds but one that shows that when there's love there's always hope.This novel is a Women's National Book Association Great Group Read for 2019.
    • 5/5
      I'm surprised at the "meh" reviews of this novel! I did not find it slow or Hallmark Channel-ish, as some have said, and I'm usually pretty wary of those traits, so I'm puzzled. But to each her own; I loved this book. It had a depth and beauty that wove about a clean line of simplicity and grace. I was touched and I look forward to reading more by Silas House.
    • 4/5
      In an editorial in the Washington Post on May 7, 2018, E.J. Dionne writes that "[m]any young people [have come] to regard religion as 'judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical and too political.'" Asher Sharp couldn't agree more. He's a Holy Roller pastor who's having a crisis of faith. He's been harboring some long-standing guilt about how he and his mother treated his brother when he came out as gay, and when he's forced to turn away a gay couple seeking shelter in a flood, his crisis comes to a head. In trying to accept the two men into his church, he loses his pulpit, and in trying to bring his more liberal thinking into his own home, he loses his wife and son.Faced with a protracted custody battle, Asher kidnaps his son, Justin, and spirits him away to Key West to find Asher's long-estranged brother, Luke. What follows is... not much. Justin and Asher find a home at a small resort hotel on the island, and Asher works as a general handyman. But neither of them do much, except think deep thoughts about God, and faith, and the church, and judgment, and holiness. This is a very introspective, slow-moving, but beautifully written book.
    • 4/5
      At university, I took a course in religion with a professor who was ordained and had studied under Karl Barth. He told me that students come into his class with a naive belief and what he taught shook them for they had never viewed their faith community and beliefs from the 'outside'. And, the professor continued, perhaps they will later return to their church and reaffirm it, this time with a deeper kind of faith.But letting go of what one is taught, the beliefs held by one's community is rare and hard. I watched church leaders endeavor to destroy a church over their perceptions of the denomination's Social Principles as approving sin. It is more common for people to destroy what they fear than to change what they believe. "None of us can know the mind of God. He's too big for that." Rev. Asher in SouthernmostI was drawn to read Southernmost by Silas House because it is about an Evangelical pastor who realizes that his narrow understanding of what God requires has created hate and bigotry, casting some into the outer darkness, and thus impairing his own soul. When a flood leaves a gay couple homeless, Asher invites them into his house, a holy hospitality which his wife cannot tolerate. Asher has felt guilt over participating in his family's and community's condemnation of his brother Luke when he came out as gay. When the gay couple comes to worship, Asher tries to lead his flock and his family to an understanding of love and hospitality, but they are recalcitrant. He can only move on, leaving his church and his wife.Asher's wife Lydia keeps their son hostage, insistent that only she can raise him in the right values now that Asher has 'gone crazy'. In fact, she has been so fearful that gayness runs in the family, she rejects her son's sensitivity and non-violence. Unable to bear separation from his son, Asher rashly kidnaps him, then travels south to the Florida Keys to find his estranged brother. It is time to make amends for his sins.Asher buys a moment in time alone with his son but knows it can't be sustained. He has to return his son home and face the consequences, hoping his wife will be merciful and not vengeful.The pacing of the novel is like a symphony that starts with an Allegro and immediate action, then settling into a slower Adagio before rising to a fast-moving Scherzo, and finally, resolves in the manner of Tchaikovsky with a slower, more internalized, final movement. I was interested by the characters' grappling with what God requires of us.And what does the Lord require of you except to be just, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8"Hebrews says to entertain strangers," Asher tells Lydia. "Love the sinner, hate the sin," she responds. "You've gotten belief confused with judgment," Asher responds; "They are our neighbors."Lydia holds steadfast to what she had been taught, resisting a changing world that tells her what she knows is wrong is now normal. She believes keeping Justin from Asher is a battle for her son's soul. Asher has come to doubt everything he grew up accepting; "I have been on the road to Damascus," he thinks. His eyes have been opened. Paul had persecuted the Christians, and struck blind on the Damascus road saw the truth and converted to Christianity. Asher's rejection of gays, including his own brother, was blindness. "You can use the Word to judge and condemn people or you can use it to love them." Judging his brother became the seed of doubt in his faith.Justin has his own faith, a sensitivity for the divine, seeing God in the Everything. Forgiveness is the easiest thing in the world, he believes. Forgetting is the hard part. Justin sees the greater truths and offers us a faith that transcends human institutions.I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.Final note: Luke tells Asher that he spend time in Grand Haven, Michigan, "in winter the most lonesome place I've seen." Amen! We spent one winter in an even smaller Lake Michigan resort town up the coast from Grand Haven. In winter the businesses closed--except for the bars and a small grocery store that was half open. The houses around us were empty, summer homes. You could walk down the middle of the streets. It was one lonesome place.
    • 4/5
      A flood in Cumberland Tennessee, an Evangelical preacher, husband, father to a nine year old and the arrival of two homosexual males looking for succor, all merge in a moment in which for Asher things will never be the same. A crisis of faith, a hard look at ones beliefs, one actions and an act of desperation will cause Asher to do the unthinkable. Trying to make up for his actions in the past, while holding tightly to the only thing he now has of value will send this earnest, loving man to the Florida Keys.Sometimes if we are lucky we find the right story at the right time, or maybe it finds us. This is an author that has been on my to readlist for quite a while, so given the opportunity I requested and received this advance copy of a book that doesn't come out until June. Religion, and the churches reception of homosexuals has been an ongoing debate. Silas House tackles it here using a very flawed,but loving preacher who cannot longer hold steadfast to the beliefs he has learned and in fact preached all his life. His son Justin, at nine is what I would call an old soul, a boy raised with love but now caught it an unenviable situation. In the Keys they will find acceptance from two women, with their own past ghosts with which to contend, but both are marvelous characters indeed. It is in the Keys that Asher will find what he seeks and the strength to do what is right. The descriptions of the Keys, and I too love it there, are just beautifully described. It is a place where many go to find acceptance.At time the message may be a bit heavy, sentimentally written but the message is a beautiful one. The characters, full of love and hurt, struggle with many of the things we struggle with, the decisions we make daily that may help or hurt. House has written a novel that may make one question his own opinions, choices and just maybe showed us that it is okay to be human, to struggle, and that things may still work out. Beautiful story.ARC from Netgalley.