Kentucky writer Silas House takes on climate, politic disasters in new book about grief

Silas House’s new novel was born out of grief over the state of the environment, where even his native Appalachia is succumbing to the ravages of climate change, and the state of the nation, teetering on the brink of Christian nationalism.

But that isn’t what he wants readers to take away from “Lark Ascending,” which will be released Sept. 27.

“When you read the novel, what I really want you to be focused on is the human story,” House says on a sunny Saturday afternoon on the deck of his Lexington home. “It’s a human story set against a backdrop that a polemic could be written about: climate change, democracy, stuff like that. I really don’t want it to ever feel like any kind of agenda. I want you to think about the human story.”

Focusing on human stories has been a key to the success of House’s previous novels, starting with “Clay’s Quilt” in 2001 through 2018’s “Southernmost.” They have addressed issues specific to his Eastern Kentucky home and broader concerns, but they have always been a backdrop to the story at hand, manifesting themselves in how they impact the characters.

“Lark Ascending” started in 2015 from House’s intense personal grief when his aunt died.

“I was really close to her, incredibly close to her,” House says. “She was a grandmother figure. She was like a second mother figure. And when she passed away, I had never lost someone that close to me. And so, the book is largely, to me, about somebody suffering intense grief.”

Joy through a dog, found family

We meet Lark on a refugee boat traveling across the Atlantic Ocean from a North America that has been ravaged by climate change and authoritarian government to seek refuge in Ireland. He has lost most of his family and the love of his life already and loses more on the journey to an Ireland that does not welcome him. But he forms a new family with a dog and a woman seeking her lost son.

“I thought, how can I insert some love and some hope into this awful scenario,” House says of the created family at the center of the story.

Bringing joy to the story is the dog, and some parts of the story are told from the dog’s perspective.

“I was lucky that I had a beagle at my disposal,” House says, referring to the dog romping in his back yard, of getting into the dog’s point of view. “A dog is a joyful animal, unless they’re taught to be otherwise,” and adds that telling some of the story from the dog’s perspective, “gives you a break from some of the darkness and the grief in the book.”

While even some reviewers in the novel’s press kit refer to it as “dystopian,” House says he doesn’t see it that way, even though it is set in a very dark near future.

“I always thought of it as an adventure story,” House says. “I was thinking of books like Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’ or Jack London’s ‘Call of the Wild’ — that sort of thing.”

Book tour with Barbara Kingsolver

As “Lark Ascending” hits shelves, House is preparing to embark on a national book tour, including some joint appearances with fellow Kentucky author Barbara Kingsolver, who he exchanged novels in progress with as he was writing “Lark” and she was writing “Demon Copperhead,” due Oct. 18.

“To be able to sit down with her and have a conversation on books is just surreal to me,” says House, who recalls reading Kingsolver’s first novel when he was a teenager as a formative experience.

“Just to think somebody from Eastern Kentucky wrote this, and now it’s this huge nationally read book, and I’m seeing her talk about her books and stuff, it made me feel like that I can be a writer.”

Almost as surreal to House is that he now has a similar impact on young Kentucky writers, particularly from Eastern Kentucky.

“That’s the most rewarding thing is when somebody says to me, you know, thank you for having a complex character that lives in a trailer because I grew up in a trailer, and people always call us trailer trash, and now there’s man in a novel that lives in a trailer and is a dignified character,” House says. He is particularly gratified by young people from Appalachia who say they have had the courage to come out because of House’s example as an openly gay man from Eastern Kentucky.

A major storyline in the new novel is the love between Lark and Arlo, outlawed by the authoritarian government.

Becoming an Appalachian expat

As his own star has risen, House says he is deeply appreciative of the Kentucky literary community, which is part of what drew him and his husband to move to Lexington from Berea, where he’s the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair in Appalachian Studies at Berea College.

House says they made the move in part after figuring out they spent so much time in Lexington he would commute less living in Lexington and working in Berea than living and working in Berea.

“It’s a writers’ community, and Lexington is such a city of Appalachian expats,” House says. “You know, I love that most of my friends who live pretty close by are originally from rural Kentucky, and I think it’s a city that’s provided a lot of safety and welcoming to people who love rural Kentucky that can’t necessarily live there, whether for economic or cultural reasons. For me, it was both.”

Eastern Kentucky has changed culturally, economically, and politically, says House, who grew up in Laurel County.

“Everything’s different, and one part of that is, you know, as you get older, your hometown sort of becomes a place of loss, because so many of your people have died out,” House says. But in Lexington, he has found a neighborhood that is open and welcoming with a sense of community through things like regular holiday gatherings that remind him of home.

“So, in a way, I’ve come full circle,” House says. “Even though I’m in a city, the neighborhood is small, and inclusive and friendly.”