Long-listed for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
Winner of the Judy Gaines Young Award
On the "Year's Best Books" lists of Booklist, The Advocate, Garden and Gun, Southern Living, Paste, and others.
Winner of the Weatherford Award
An Indie Next List Pick
An OKRA Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Association
A Publisher's Weekly "Buzz Book"
A Southern Living Best Book of Summer
A Joseph-Beth Book of the Month
Starred Review-Booklist
Starred Review-Foreword Reviews
One of Bitter Southerner's "Five Books We Can't Wait to Read This Summer"
One of the American Library Associations Ten Choices for Best Book Group Books of 2018
One of Garden and Gun's Best Books of the Year
One of Southern Living's Best Books of 2018
Recommended by Barbara Kingsolver in The New York Times, Parade, and on BN.com
The One Island/One Book Selection for Key West, Florida
The Community Read for Batavia, New York
One of Off the Shelf's "12 Books That Will Knock Your Boots Off"
For recent media about Southernmost: News
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 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 about love and its consequences in a quickly changing America.
Advance Praise for Southernmost
“This story of one man’s awakening and atonement is beautifully paced and structured, optimistic and hopeful in the best sort of way.” Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain
“Southernmost engages my most deeply hidden fears and hopes. Silas House has all the gifts of a passionate storyteller, and to this book he adds the heartfelt convictions of a man willing to voice what we so seldom see in print—the ways in which with all good intentions we can mess up and go wrong, and only later try to sort out how we can win our own redemption. I love this book, and for it, I love Silas House.” Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina
“A novel of painful, finally revelatory awakening, of fierce love and necessary disaster, of the bravery required to escape the prison of our days, to make a better and more worthy life.” Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You
"House's characters are as real to me as my own family. Southernmost is a novel for our time, a courageous and necessary book." Jennifer Haigh, author of Heat and Light
“A spiritual journey, a love story, and a classic road novel . . . With its themes of acceptance and equality, Southernmost holds a special meaning for America right now, with relevance even beyond its memorable story." Lee Smith, author of Dimestore
"Southernmost is an emotional tsunami. The classic themes of great literature written about family life are upended here in a modern twist as a father and son flee one life in search of another; as estranged brothers separated by time and their judgment of one another seek redemption. This is a story of faith lost and love found, and what we must throw overboard on the journey in order to keep moving. A treasure." --Adriana Trigiani, author of Kiss Carlo
Winner of the Judy Gaines Young Award
On the "Year's Best Books" lists of Booklist, The Advocate, Garden and Gun, Southern Living, Paste, and others.
Winner of the Weatherford Award
An Indie Next List Pick
An OKRA Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Association
A Publisher's Weekly "Buzz Book"
A Southern Living Best Book of Summer
A Joseph-Beth Book of the Month
Starred Review-Booklist
Starred Review-Foreword Reviews
One of Bitter Southerner's "Five Books We Can't Wait to Read This Summer"
One of the American Library Associations Ten Choices for Best Book Group Books of 2018
One of Garden and Gun's Best Books of the Year
One of Southern Living's Best Books of 2018
Recommended by Barbara Kingsolver in The New York Times, Parade, and on BN.com
The One Island/One Book Selection for Key West, Florida
The Community Read for Batavia, New York
One of Off the Shelf's "12 Books That Will Knock Your Boots Off"
For recent media about Southernmost: News
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 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 about love and its consequences in a quickly changing America.
Advance Praise for Southernmost
“This story of one man’s awakening and atonement is beautifully paced and structured, optimistic and hopeful in the best sort of way.” Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain
“Southernmost engages my most deeply hidden fears and hopes. Silas House has all the gifts of a passionate storyteller, and to this book he adds the heartfelt convictions of a man willing to voice what we so seldom see in print—the ways in which with all good intentions we can mess up and go wrong, and only later try to sort out how we can win our own redemption. I love this book, and for it, I love Silas House.” Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina
“A novel of painful, finally revelatory awakening, of fierce love and necessary disaster, of the bravery required to escape the prison of our days, to make a better and more worthy life.” Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You
"House's characters are as real to me as my own family. Southernmost is a novel for our time, a courageous and necessary book." Jennifer Haigh, author of Heat and Light
“A spiritual journey, a love story, and a classic road novel . . . With its themes of acceptance and equality, Southernmost holds a special meaning for America right now, with relevance even beyond its memorable story." Lee Smith, author of Dimestore
"Southernmost is an emotional tsunami. The classic themes of great literature written about family life are upended here in a modern twist as a father and son flee one life in search of another; as estranged brothers separated by time and their judgment of one another seek redemption. This is a story of faith lost and love found, and what we must throw overboard on the journey in order to keep moving. A treasure." --Adriana Trigiani, author of Kiss Carlo