Fleeing Milton but I never did get to the end of "Paradise Lost"

We decided to evacuate to a friend's house further from the water. Tides on the beach are running high due to some troublesome hurricanes in the Atlantic and high tide may be really high. Watching hurricane news all day. Many press conferences by the governor and his minions. I almost hate to say this but I now find the voice of Gov. DeSantis quite soothing. It's quite a departure from the scolding uncle voice we usually hear when he's blasting "Woke" folks and supporting Moms for Liberty book bans. And cutting Florida arts funding due to a semi-nude character in a stage play. Big cuts, $160 million I think. No excuse for that but he found one. Maybe it was an R-rated "Paradise Lost." Milton -- get it?

Silas House's "Southernmost" takes the reader way way down south

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. 

A podcast asks: What Should I Read Next? "Florida" by Gainesville writer Lauren Groff

I almost literally ran into fiction writer Lauren Groff outside the Tallahassee Marriott. I was chatting with my sister Molly, the pusher (of my wheelchair) and there was Groff, big as life and very noticeable in her pantsuit of many colors. My sister Molly stopped the wheelchair and chatted with Groff as if they were old friends but just met at the authors' table buying books for me, the Groff fan who attended her session at Word of South, the city's spring celebration of literature and music. "Is this him?" Groff pointed at me. Molly replied, "That's him." Me (a.k.a. him) was pleased that she knew my name and that I was a grad of UF where Lauren teaches writing. "I love your stories."

I was referring to her National-Book-Award-nominated "Florida" with a native Florida panther on the cover. Most stories in the collection are set in Florida (no surprise there) and they are knock-your-socks-off wonderful. I keep the trade paperback on my bookshelf within reach of my Wyoming writing desk where I write this now.

A few weeks ago I reread the opening story "Ghosts and Empties" about a working woman and mother who slips on her running shoes and prowls her Gainesville neighborhood at night. Why? "I have somehow become a woman who yells..." She hooked me right there. That is the joy of any fiction, the opener, one that delivers.

The next story, "At the Earth's Imagined Corners," is even better in an entirely different way. We leave contemporary Florida for the 1930s and '40s in rural Florida "at the edge of a swamp with unnamed species of reptiles." It's a tough one, filled with rage and unnamed reptiles. "Dogs Go Wolf" features two young girls abandoned by their parents on a Florida island. Uh oh, I thought, fearing the worst. The girls turn their dilemma into an adventure and the ending may surprise.

During our afternoon at the Marriott ballroom, we saw a rendition of "Peter and the Wolf" performed by the South Georgia Ballet Company. Following that, we heard from three experts on what we should read next. After that, Groff was interviewed by Anne Bogel for her podcast, "What Should I Read Next?" We discovered that Groff was set to open an indie bookstore in Gainesville, a "general interest bookstore” that emphasizes banned books, BIPOC authors, LGBTQ+ authors, and Florida authors."

My kind of bookstore. It's located at 601 Main Street, part of the new South Main Station. Groff's husband, Clay Kallman, grew up working at his parents' Florida Bookstore where I bought "gently-used" paperbacks for my English classes. As Groff told the Independent Florida Alligator: “We were hoping to respond to the recent authoritarian slide in the state of Florida right now,” Groff said, “and to respond with celebration of a lot of the books that are currently being banned.”

Amen and hallelujah.