The Act of Living Includes Hope

In Conversation with Silas House

Billy Lezra

Silas House is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, one book of creative nonfiction, and three plays. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, the New York Times, the Advocate, Garden & Gun, and other publications. A former commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered, House is the winner of two Nautilus Awards, the Storylines Prize from the NAV/New York Public Library, an E. B. White Award, and the Southern Book Prize. He has been appointed as the poet laureate of Kentucky for the years 2023-2025.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

In an interview, you said: “I have always written myself out of trouble.” When did you first start to write yourself out of trouble?

I was raised in a strict and fundamentalist sect of the Pentecostal Church. In the pulpit, for instance, the women all had to wear very long skirts and weren’t allowed to cut their hair, whereas the men didn’t seem to have many rules–probably because a man made up all those rules. We went to church three or four nights a week, and sometimes those church services lasted three hours. I was supposed to be listening, and I wasn’t allowed to take any toys, so I had a little notebook. I would spend the entire service writing everything down to try to survive those hours of what felt like a barrage of wrath and judgment. 

Instead of listening to the preacher preach the same bigoted stuff, I would just look at people in the church and make up little stories for them, or do a character sketch. I realize now that I was just surviving those incredibly long, boring church services. You know, I’m making it sound horrific–it’s more horrific in retrospect than it was as a child: they were my community and there was a lot of love, even though there were damaging and scary things happening, too. But what I’m trying to say is: I turned to the written word to imagine my way out of things. 

Also, when I was eleven years old, my uncle was murdered. When somebody in your family dies, it’s one thing–when somebody is murdered, it’s a whole different kind of grief. To some degree, I lost my parents for a little while because they were so caught up in the murder trial. I became keenly aware that stories about my uncle were being re-shaped and that family stories were also being re-shaped. I thought a lot about how important storytelling had been to my family. And I realized: if stories aren’t written down, they can easily be changed. This really moved me to start writing stuff down, to make stories permanent. So writing became a way to survive a seismic shift in the family dynamic. 

You have spoken of the importance of being a visible writer of faith, specifically because faith has been so weaponized and politicized. What does it mean to you to be a visible writer of faith? 

There are so few characters of faith or discussions of faith in contemporary literature unless they’re being caricatured or turned into precious tropes of Christianity. Most Americans are people of faith, but when you look at literature, you don’t see a whole lot of this representation. There are only a handful of writers I can think of that really explore faith–Marilynne Robinson, John Irving, Paul Harding. Those are the only three that come to mind for me. I think faith is a big part of who we are as people. Even if you don’t have a belief system, we live in a world that is shaped by faith, which is why it is important to me to address that in my writing. In Lark Ascending, I’m especially looking at agnosticism–people who are atheists or agnostic are rarely represented. Also, honestly, as a gay person, I think it’s important to say “I am multifaceted” because so often people hear you’re a gay writer and they just have all these assumptions. For instance, they assume that you are not a person of faith or a rural person. Being visible in all of my facets is important, especially as somebody who’s from the South. All of these identities shape the way that I see the world as a writer.

What does it mean to you to be a multifaceted writer?

One of my main goals as a novelist is to explore the complexity of a story, of a character, etc. I think novels are more important today specifically because the Internet makes it very easy for us to think in absolutes. And one of our goals as novelists should be to explore the three-dimensionality of people. So therefore, it’s important to me as a writer to talk about my own multidimensionality, to say I’m more than one thing.

I read that you like to take long daily walks during which you’ll think about what you’re working on and that you prefer to sit down to the page once you have clarity. I am curious: how much did you already know going into writing Lark Ascending and what did you discover once you were actually in the process of writing?

I have always used walking as a catalyst for creativity. When I’m walking in the woods, my body is in motion, but my mind is still until it starts really getting active with the ideas. So I’m finding the stillness required to get the mind active. With Lark Ascending I incorporated the walking into the book itself–the poor protagonist is always walking. I would go on purposefully incredibly long walks and push myself far past how far I wanted to walk, just so I could capture what I felt, how the ground felt under my feet. I almost always experience something on my walk that makes its way into the book.

It has been scientifically proven that exercise makes us more creative–that it fires off some pistons in our brain that may not fire as easily otherwise. There is nothing that freaks me out more than if I sit down to write and I don’t have anything and I’m staring at a blank page. And so that’s the main reason I walk: I always come to the page prepared. When Hemingway would finish writing for the day, he would always stop before the end of a sentence–that way he always had something to start with. 

This reminds me of something you wrote in Lark Ascending: “The two best things I had learned about surviving seemed contradictory. But when done in proper times, they worked: keep moving and be still.” How did these ideas come to you and what compelled you to explore them in the novel?

I was raised in a family that had a very strong work ethic. The idea of “self-care” for them would be laughable. To them, “self-care” equals selfishness or not being productive. The idea is that you have to just keep working as hard as you can or you haven’t accomplished anything. And so my instinct, if I’m grieving, for instance, is to get busy. But after a certain point, I would fall over because I wasn’t tending to myself. And that made the grief worse, even though I thought I was helping the grief by being busy. Eventually, I realized it’s about moderation. You have to know when to get busy and when to be still–both of those things can sustain you. But when you’re raised in a family that is so intent on maintaining a work ethic all the time, you’ll feel guilty if you’re just sitting by a creek and watching the trees. But at the same time, I’m the sort of person who loves nothing better than that. 

For me, giving up the guilt of being still was hard, and I had to teach myself how to do that. I also realized that some people, when they’re sad, need to get in bed and cover their head. And there’s nothing wrong with that. And there’s nothing wrong if what works for you is to just get busy. But there has to be some balance with both of those, right? I mean, you can’t stay in bed forever, and you can’t just keep working as hard as you can, forever. In Lark Ascending, I constantly thought about modes of survival. To me, one of the most important things was to realize that, to survive, sometimes you have to keep going and sometimes you have to sit down. And there are other elements of survival: community is important, art is important, music and expressing yourself and storytelling are central to survival as well. Lark is much more equipped to survive because he loves his dog. And so, in moments of deep sorrow, he needs to keep going for the dog even if he can’t go for himself. 

 How did you decide to write from the point of view of the dog?

Well, it’s a dark novel, so I was trying to find moments of lightness, and I was thinking about how to be good, which is a constant theme in my work. I was thinking, “How can I think more about the epitome of goodness?” And to me, that’s a dog. When I’m with a dog, I always feel like I’m with a creature that is good, at its core, unless it’s been taught not to be. So I thought it would be interesting to use the dog’s perspective. The other thing is, since Lark Ascending is an end-of-civilization narrative, there’s a lot of existentialism. But as far as we know, dogs aren’t aware of their own impending demise, they just sort of enjoy the walk through the woods and whatever they’re smelling. I think if we could be more like that, we’d be a lot better off. And also: when I write, my beagle is usually right beside me, so it was real easy to just use him in the book.

Another device I noticed is the way that Lark discloses that he lives to be 90.

Yeah, that’s another device to get you through the darkness. In the back of your mind, you always know, “Well, Lark lives to be an old man which means the world does go on for enough time that there’s the possibility of real healing and real change.” On one hand, this device lessens the suspense because you know he’s not going to get killed on the next page. But in another way, it increases the suspense because you’re thinking: “How is this all going to work out? And how does the world change?” 

When you’re writing a novel that’s set in the future, the temptation is to look to other books that are set in the future– science fiction, etc. As I wrote about my future, I realized that my future is much more like the past: there’s no electricity, people are living in small groups just trying to raise some food and survive. This is much more like hundreds of years ago than a future where there’s ultra technology. So, I looked at a lot of literature from the 1700s and 1800s, especially adventure stories like Robinson Crusoe, Kidnapped, and Treasure Island. These books almost always use a framing device in which a story is being told. I wanted Lark Ascending to have that feeling of storytelling, like you are sitting by this old man’s bed as he tells you about this great adventure of his life. 

One of the elements that most stood out to me in this novel is the immense tenderness that runs through it, even in moments of violence. What is your relationship to tenderness, as a writer and as a person?

I was tenderhearted from a young age. And to some degree, expressing my tenderness made me an outsider, which fed my writing and creativity. As a little boy growing up in a rural place, you’re not really encouraged to be tender. You’re encouraged to be “tough,” whatever that means. I think our world increasingly negates tenderness. There’s this idea that you should be real street-smart and rough and even uncaring. It’s just a strange phenomenon that I don’t really understand. To me, there’s a real strength in expressing your feelings. I think you have to be strong to show your tenderness–I wanted to explore that and celebrate that in the book because not being tender is what got us in this mess of the climate crisis. There is a huge contingent of people in the United States that think you’re a bleeding heart if you try to talk about climate change, but the idea that you shouldn’t be tenderhearted toward generations that are coming after you is so callous and selfish. So I think that one reason I’m thinking a lot about tenderness is in response to the climate crisis, too.

Another instance in which I noticed tenderness is in your rendering and descriptions of the natural world–the glowing green, the burning blues, in the textures of the forests. You have said that your own relationship with the natural world is one of your most important relationships. How does your relationship with the natural world inform this work?

When I’m outside I am reminded of the constant presence of miracles. I’m much more aware of the presence of a creator when I am in the woods than in a church. This was always profound to me–simultaneously profound and simple. I just love the mystery of nature and the science of nature. It makes me think a lot, and it makes me feel better. There’s a reason we are drawn to the ocean and a reason we gather around campfires–there is something primal about these experiences. A lot of people have a fear of the wilderness, but I’ve always felt a real safety in it. I also admire the violence of nature, too. I love to describe the natural world–I love to describe trees and water and bird calls and things like that. There’s a timelessness to it.

You write: “Glendalough had become more than a word my parents had said over and over. Glendalough had become my parents.” And I wanted to ask you, are there places in the world that feel like your parents?

Yes. I left my hometown, and of course, I miss the terrain, I miss the topography, I miss the way people talk there, etc. But all this is tangled up in my parents. I can’t separate the place from the people. The only reason I go back home is to see my parents–they are my only family in my hometown. When I’m there, I love the familiarity of it and how it returns me to childhood. But I think Lark feels like he needs to reach Glendalough because his parents didn’t. So he’s completing the journey for them–in that way, their ghosts are sort of pushing him to survive.

In an interview, you mentioned that this book is about global and personal grief, and also about hope. And that hope is an organic part of grief. What is the relationship between grief and hope?

I think hope is the only thing that carries you through the grief–the hope that it’ll get easier to take the grief or the hope that you still have a purpose to serve. Somebody might lose a child and the only thing that carries them through is that they have another child to raise. I just think the act of living includes hope. Sometimes people lose their hope and they’re not able to keep living and that’s not their fault. The main thesis of this book was: as long as you have hope, you can keep going, but if you lose that hope, it’s over. This was something I thought about as I understood profound grief in a deeper way. And I was thinking about global grief, as well. On one hand, sometimes things feel so hopeless–like we can never change the system we’re caught up in, but we keep fighting, and somehow there’s something that keeps us going, and ultimately we hope that things will get better. This makes me think of the saying: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” I think outrage has some kind of implicit hope in it: you’re outraged because you think something can change.

Where do you go to find hope?

I work with undergrads, which really helps me see the tenderness of this generation. I guess it sounds cliché to say that I see a lot of hope with young people, but I do. The arts community also gives me a lot of hope because, for the most part, these are people who are hoping to create a thing of beauty or a catalyst for change. And I just love that: it makes me feel hopeful when I see people creating art. You hear an incredible piece of music or see a great film and it just makes you feel better about humanity, that we can create those things.

This reminds me of a line in Lark Ascending: “The only thing that carried me through was an occasional surprise of beauty among the desolation.”

Yes. That is a direct result of experiencing profound grief. When you are going through an incredible loss, every once in a while there will be something that reminds you life is worth living, that there’s still wonder in the world. There’s still beauty, so therefore, things aren’t completely ruined. 

There’s a moment in the novel where Lark laughs and realizes that he hadn’t laughed in years. This made me want to ask: what makes you laugh?

The main thing that makes me laugh a really joyful laugh is a dog. It’s their innocence and also the fact that they get embarrassed, which I think is funny. And just being with friends who are funny. It’s very rare for me to find a television show or a movie that makes me genuinely, deeply laugh. So when I do find shows like that, I just love them. I think The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is one of the best comedies ever. That show made me laugh out loud. My husband makes me laugh. That’s one of the most attractive things about a person, I think–if they can make you laugh.

How would you like to be remembered?

I would like to be remembered as somebody who really challenged misconceptions about rural people, queer people, people of faith. I would like to be known as a writer who cares deeply about language–worrying over a sentence is really important to me. Also, for me personally, activism is a huge part of being an artist.  I think art makes people who don’t feel visible feel seen. So for me, it’s important to say something with a piece of art.

What do you want to say with your art?

That we should try harder to be good to each other and be better stewards. I think a whole lot of people are experiencing grief in the climate crisis. And for me, part of the grief is that it seems like it could have been avoided if people had been more tender-hearted, more caring, and less selfish. I think there was a way for economy and environmentalism to coexist, and I think a lot of the reason for the climate crisis is the corporations’ refusal to sacrifice some of their profits to be more ecological. But at the same time, I don’t want to put all responsibility on corporations and the government. I think we have to look at our own part, too. I’ll say to people: every little thing matters. Like turning off the faucet when you brush your teeth, turning off the lights. And sometimes people say: “But why should I do that when movie stars take private jets across the country?” My response to that is: I can’t control what those people are doing. I can control what I’m doing and I can try to help in whatever small way I can. I think we have a moral obligation no matter how powerless we feel.