[New] LARK ASCENDING

WRITTEN BY KENTUCKY AUTHOR, SILAS HOUSE

Sometimes it is necessary to read something very hard, something unsettling, something that makes you question and feel. Often… we need a reminder to be still in order to listen.

In Silas House’s latest novel, Lark Ascending, the story is narrated by Lark, now an old man looking back to share his story of pain and survival. Lark stated, “I’ve burned, and that’s what I wish for all of you. To burn with anger, desire, joy, sorrow. All of it.”

In a vision of what a possible future could look like, House writes of wildfires which consumed the United States; fighting, famine, destruction everywhere which swept across the country. Those in power had taken away America; they took away human rights and dignity. This thinking swept across the world.

Lark was just a boy when America was changing and didn’t remember the “Before”. He and his parents, his mother’s best friend and her children were forced to hide and eventually flee the United States to cross the Atlantic Ocean to Ireland where American refugees were thought to be accepted and safe. What they endured is difficult to read, particularly because you must realize and wrestle with what is happening- this isn’t about someone fleeing to the U.S. but from it…and why. Lark describes his darkest

REVIEWED BY DEBBIE ZUERNER DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, OWENSBORO HEALTH

points in his life, losing those he loved and seeing such persecution, starvation and death yet striving to never give up as his mother had told him. The story will make you pause, think, and it will disturb you. His words draw you in so you can feel and perhaps hear like never before what so many others describe when forced to leave a home, a community, or country they love and why.

Lark comes of age and understands his differences aren’t accepted by others and he and his family could be killed because of those differences just as his Aunts were, and other differences not accepted nor tolerated by those in power. It will make you think of wars past, wars present, and the threats of evil and violence to society.

Some may say or write that this is not a story about hope. I disagree. It is a story of hatred, power, pain, mistrust, hunger, death, and grief. It is also a story of deep loyalty, love, trust, endurance, mystery, and the deep need to connect with someone or something, something like a dog, a tree, the rain. It is a story of community and family and how they might be defined. It is a story how we overlook atrocities happening right in front of our faces of and what we take for granted. But in the end, Lark speaks of balance, of joy and of sorrow, of friends and family and shares his most important realization of all.