Book Review Lark Ascending

  By Silas House

• Pub Date: 2022

• Where I bought this book: The Taleless Dog Booksellers, Berea, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: House is one of the best of the current crop of Kentucky authors

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    As the world literally burns in the future, Lark, a young man of about 20, strives to survive after the fires and the fundamentalists take over his family's hideaway cabins in Maine.

    They takes a boat across the Atlantic Ocean to Ireland, which they hear is one of the few places left that is taking in refugees. 

    More a character study than a plot-driven narrative, Lark's story shows us how life's struggle conjures up misery and sadness, yet also provides some joy and hope.

    The strength of House's work in this novel is not so much the story as the language. His writing is among the best that Kentucky offers -- and his partial setting in Ireland brings to mind some of that country's finest authors. 

    Just the words he uses to describe the simple things -- such as the time of day -- are a clear example of his talent. The blue hour, for instance, is just before the sun rises, when the light starts taking over from the darkness of night.

    And Helen, one of Lark's fellow Irish travelers, refers to the gloaming of the evening, When Lark asks why she uses that word instead of dusk or twilight, and he does, she replies, "the word gloaming is so much lovelier."