Silas House with Colum McCann: The Tulip Poplars

Silas House, an essential literary voice of Appalachia and former Poet Laureate of Kentucky, joins award-winning author Colum McCann on stage for the launch of his new novel, The Tulip Poplars.

Spanning the 20th century, from rural Kentucky to NYC, The Tulip Poplars follows the lives of four people trying to find unconventional happiness in a world that demands conventional choices. In the early 1900s, Tom and Amos find themselves drawn to one another while laboring in the tobacco fields of their Southern hometown. Meanwhile, Maeve yearns for Paschal, a young Black man whose very presence exposes the brutal racial boundaries of their era. As their paths diverge — from the mountains of Appalachia to Southern cities and up to New York — each must confront the costs of belonging, desire, and self-determination.

Drawing on years of historical research as well as his own family history — including a relative subjected to conversion therapy and the legacy of racial violence in his hometown — House brings extraordinary intimacy and emotional depth to this sweeping historical love story.

Expect an evening of conversation about queer life in rural America, stitching together some of the most painful fractures of the 20th century — and hear House reflect on the power of chosen freedom and how his own family history shaped the arc of his remarkable novel.

“A great big orchestra of a book… tiny and epic, ancient and new, local and global all at the same time. It’s a song of repair at a time when we need to heal.” — Colum McCann