Review of SOUTHERNMOST by Silas House (New Release)

3.5 Stars

Asher Sharp is an evangelical preacher in Tennessee.  His community experiences a terrible flood and “More than one of his congregants . . . blamed this new flood on the Supreme Court’s ruling [in favour of gay marriage].”  A decade earlier, Asher rejected his brother Luke when he announced that he was a homosexual; Luke has been feeling guilty about turning his back on his brother and now welcomes two gay men into his church.  That decision results in his being dismissed as pastor.  Asher also clashes with his wife Lydia because of her religious intolerance and ends up taking his 9-year-old son Justin with him to Key West where he thinks Luke might be living. 

This is not an action-filled novel.  Its pace is slow, with a focus on Asher’s self-reflections. He thinks a great deal about his beliefs and decides he does not want to be the type of person he was:  “Judging and preaching and telling others how to live, filled up with the weight of thinking he knew what God wanted.”  He tells his parishioners, “’For years I’ve preached to you that you should judge others, and lead them to change their ways.  But I’ve changed my way of thinking.  What I’m telling you right now is that the only one who can judge any of us is God above.’”  He tells his wife, “’You’ve gotten belief confused with judgment.  We’re not to judge.  You’ve let all this judgment from the church take you over.  It’s taken the joy out of you.’”

The evangelical church in Tennessee is not portrayed in a very positive light.  Congregants seem to be very narrow-minded; in fact, the impression is that they want no outside influences.  Asher, for example, mentions that he “had devoted all of his reading to the Bible, of course.  That had been expected of him, to read the Bible and nothing else.  His congregation had hired him because he had not been to seminary.”   A man whose daughter is saved by a gay man is still not willing to welcome him to his church.  Lydia is so fearful that Justin could be a homosexual that she takes him to therapy because of his sensitivity. 

As a contrast to this rigid belief system, the author offers Justin’s all-inclusive beliefs.  He is sensitive to the divine in everything:  “Everything That Is, Is Holy.”  At one point he mentions that “he didn’t believe in God.  Not really.  This was what he believed in.  The Everything.”  While sitting on the beach by the ocean, “Justin can see nothing but ocean, and that is Everything.  And Justin can feel the Everything beneath his hand where he is resting his palm on [his dog’s] chest . . . He can feel the Everything under himself in the gritty sand.  He can smell it in the seaweedy smell smoothing over his face.  He can hear it in the laughter of teenagers down the beach . . . The ocean is God but so are we all.”

Though Asher grows as a person, he is not always likeable.  His decisions concerning his son are well-intentioned but he gives little consideration to the consequences for himself and others.  Sometimes he is also downright stupid, as in not using fake names.  Above all, he is selfish.  He focuses on his love for his son without considering his son’s love for others and on what he has lost by not being in contact with Luke without thinking about what Luke has lost and must feel.  Asher sees himself as a victim of injustice but doesn’t realize that his actions are often unjust towards others.  He does take measures to take responsibility and make amends but he could have saved himself and others from so much suffering.

The diction is noteworthy:  “a sky groaned open from a black night” and “he saw the massively swollen river supping at the edges of the lower fields” and “He maneuvered his Jeep across two bridges whose undersides were being caressed by the river and by the time he got to her house the water was nipping at her porch.” 

Some of the events stretch the reader’s credulity.  Asher gets a job without revealing his surname?  For three months, Asher and Justin manage to avoid being discovered?   A woman who has lost a child would be so forgiving of Asher’s behaviour towards Justin’s mother?

The book does offer food for thought, but its slow pace and predictability make it less enjoyable.  

Note:  I received a digital galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.