Pain pours from "Southernmost," the latest novel by Silas House. Most of it comes from Asher Sharp. He's a fundamentalist Christian preacher in rural Tennessee who yearns to do the right thing but brings down a cascading series of disasters. The river floods and he rescues a gay couple and invites them to his church. The congregation is scandalized. All hell breaks loose when same-sex marriage is legalized and the couple asks Asher to marry them. A strict gimme-that-ol'-time-religion preacher would refuse. But ten years before, Asher drove his gay brother Luke out of the church and out of town and he's regretted it ever since. He asks permission from the church council. Absolutely not, they say.
From the pulpit, Asher blasts this narrow-mindedness and his angry tirade is filmed and goes viral and gets him in trouble. His wife turns on him as do church members and almost everyone in town. Lydia, his wife, uses the video to persuade a divorce court judge that Asher is too unbalanced for joint custody of their nine-year-old son, Justin. This loss is too much for him. He kidnaps his son and travels to Key West to ask forgiveness from his brother whose last communication from him carried a postmark of Key West, the "southernmost" city in the U S. Thus the title of the novel.
Asher does his best to keep a low profile and moves into an enclave populated by an engaging group of Florida Keys misfits. It becomes Asher's de facto congregation but that's not how he sees it. He just wants to safeguard Justin and apologize to Luke. Along the way, Asher learns key lessons in love and friendship and forgiveness.
Almost anything can happen. Key West has a free-and-easy reputation. There is a price to pay for kidnapping -- just what will that be? House keeps us guessing to the end. Meanwhile, we get a deftly told tale at turns heart-breaking and delightful with a cast of intriguing characters.
I had never read this author but knew I was in good hands with its publisher, North Carolina's Algonquin Books (now part of the Hachette Book Group). Look at their online catalog and try to restrain yourself from ordering new novels by Julia Alvarez and Lee Smith and works by Chuck D and Neil Gaiman.
