Plot wise it’s interesting: An island populated by first generation Africans is subjected to Biblical happenings, ranging from plagues to flood and yet it’s a safe place and cut off from the world, a garden of Eden if you will. However two things happen: A teacher/preacher arrives and starts honing the islanders talents and some doctors show up and start measuring and classifying the inhabitants has eugenics is becoming popular. The end results are inhabitants being sterilised or deported,

I don’t hate this, but it’s very hard to find things I like when his overblown prose just blankets everything. It’s almost as if it’s not even about the characters, but about what the writer can do in a paragraph, about how many adjectives he can conjure up in a description, about how he can turn a loooong phrase around, which overpowers the plot and eclipses the characters.

What I did not like was the writing style. I could not muster any love whatsoever for the style. I got distracted and had to reread sentences, Not only did this dampen my enjoyment of the book but I began to dislike it with each page turn.

A reimagined tale, based on the real crimes by mainlanders (white) against a mixed race population that had been on Malaga Island, Maine for over a century. . .six generations.

The islanders grew and lived under the world's radar for a long time using island resources and made a life for themselves and their families. Paul Harding's retelling of this story is lovely, by turns whimsical and filled with the wonder of living on a 42-acre rock just off the coast of a larger land - a comfort, a Plan B that they never much needed, each generation growing more confident in their ability to make-do. But some things never change. Missionaries wanted to "educate" and took back tales of oddities (some spoke latin, some developed their own ways of speaking), and other behaviors that didn't meet with mainlander social standards. And that new science Eugenics filled newspapers and the latest books. (If it's written it's true, you know.)

This was a hard read, because it was based on awful events that actually happened. But even tragedies can be beautifully told, and this author brought that about for me. I stayed to the end, and will be pondering this forever. . .

*A sincere thank you to Paul Harding, W. W. Norton & Company, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and independently review.* #ThisOtherEden #NetGalley 2024.52:17

i know this is purposefully overwritten - in my heart i know it's a great work of art - but i fear i am not smart enough to get through it lol. kind of a DNF, kind of a Maybe Finish Later.

Paul Harding’s This Other Eden brings the reader a fascinating book based on a true story about an integrated island off the coast of Maine. The history of its founder to many years later comes alive on the pages. I began reading on my Kindle but got lost in the very lengthy sentences and format. I switched to the hardback, print reversion with a much more successful appreciation for the beauty of the writing and well developed telling of the story as people lived there and were then forced from their homes.

Having read Tinkers, I began my reading of This Other Eden with high expectations and hopes. I wasn't disappointed. On the surface it appears a pastoral novel. But this is false. To the reader the landscape is hidden -- at first. Then as the novel unravels, it is clear there is a dark narrative thread running through the whole thing, a cohesion of some kind that is based on something less rosy than than a scenic, island reverie and altogether discomfiting: history, racism, resistance. This is a historical fiction, spanning the 18th through the 20th centuries, a significant time in the development of race and racism in America. Harding delivers this highly charged story carefully, in an ecological, atmospheric wrapper, one that makes the geography of the island on which the story takes place -- its isolation, its raw, loam scent, its shaded trees -- an important metaphorical actor. The island serves as a shroud and a setting for the demise of a way of life: a black way of life as it is subsumed by whiteness. Readers should expect to feel uncomfortable, perhaps a sense of claustrophobia from an inability to escape the island. This is to mimic the kind of slow isolation felt by its inhabitants.

This Other Eden is a novel about an island and its black inhabitants, the mainland and its white population, the slow -- then rapid -- shift of race and the infliction of racism on the former, the closing in on a way of life. The island is inhabited in 1792 by an interracial couple, not an uncommon pairing in this moment in time necessarily; Benjamin Honey and Patience, an Irish woman (the Irish having been ostracized as some Other race in the hierarchy of Western Europe). Their descendants occupy the island, but are increasingly subjected to America's abhorrence and obsession with eradicating miscegenation. As the decades and centuries roll on, the islanders become targeted by eugenicists -- much like the rest of the nation. So-called "good" intentions to bring progress and education to the island are misguided attempts, achieving none of their intended outcomes and instead excelling at cultural and racial erasure.

This Other Eden is told through the eyes of the islanders. Even while it addresses larger issues such as eugenics and racism, it is focused on the experiences of the islanders. It is a novel about people and the lives they must live, even while it is a commentary on America's racist history.

This Other Eden is a work of historical fiction which takes place on a small island off of the coast of Maine. In 1792, Benjamin Honey, a freed slave, and his wife decided to make their home on the island. The story begins with them and grows to include a lively assortment of their descendants and other "different" characters. They are exceedingly poor but largely self sufficient, managing to avoid most contact with the mainland (white) folks.

Things shift with the coming (intrusion) of a retired schoolteacher/missionary. Though his intentions are good (setting up a school on the island) the results are disastrous. No longer invisible, the islanders become victims of the social intolerances and injustices carried out under the guise of the pseudo science of the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century.

This Other Eden shines a light on a gut wrenching part of American history. It also serves as a cautionary tale. Poignant and well written, This Other Eden will appeal to lovers of historical fiction with substance. It would be a good book club selection.

I received a drc from the publisher via NetGalley.

It’s hard to say I loved this book—the story of a mixed-race Maine island community forced out of their homes is tragic and infuriating, more-so because it’s based on a real 1912 historical event. I had to take frequent breaks while reading, but I always came back to it, in part because of a need to know what would become of these characters and in part because of the exquisite writing. This writing, you guys! Reading these sentences was pure pleasure. There are images and turns of phrase that have been replaying in my mind since I encountered them, and I’m still marveling at the creativity and mastery of language these passages required. I have so many thoughts about this book, but I’m more confident in my ability to verbalize them than write them. I’ll be sharing more in my upcoming January Ranked Reading Recap, but for now I’ll refer you to this excellent NYT review.

A novel based on a true event-the government mandated resettlement of a small mixed race community living on a small island off the coast of Maine at the start of the 20 th century. Historical fiction, Harding traces its beginnings in the early 1800s until its forced evacuation.
With strong religious overtones the novel explores miscegenation, eugenics , family loyalty, and the overriding theme of “ big brother”- the government-deciding what was “ best”.
Well written, characters well drawn , a great read for those who like historical fiction with multiple biblical references and themes.
I didn’t think it was a book “ for me” but really enjoyed it.

I requested this book for background reading for a First Impressions Program we ran on BookBrowse. The book proved popular with our reviewers, scoring an average of 4.4-stars. See link for reviews.

In This Other Eden, Paul Harding brings to life a little known set of circumstances on an island off the coast of Maine in the early 1900’s. Apple Island was settled in 1792 by a formerly enslaved Black man and his Irish wife. More than a century later, their descendants, still living on the island, were targeted by the 0h-so-white and righteous government for removal, citing incest, mental illness and illiteracy and the mixed-race inhabitants of the island as a threat to society. Harding imagines the lives of these islanders, and paints a picture of a hardscrabble life, but one that is based in love and hard work and tolerance. The lyrical telling of this story can’t completely hide some of the questionable, even ugly, outcomes of the islander’s insular lives, but it does deposit the reader directly into the hearts and minds of these characters. The story tends to wander, to veer off into lengthy asides, but the whole becomes a tender, thoughtful look at “otherness,” and the ways well-meaning intervention can become self-righteousness and destructive.

In 1793, when Benjamin Honey, a former slave, and his wife Patience, an Irish immigrant, arrived at an abandoned Penobscot island off the coast of Maine, it was to escape intolerance and cultivate his dream of an apple orchard – an Eden of his own. Through the decades, his mixed-race descendants became more isolated, only allowing the few to join the community who would work together for survival and protect their peaceful existence.
Harding takes time to lay down the foundation of his story, but the flow picks up when the narrative refocuses on 1911 and the primary storyline of Benjamin’s great-granddaughter Esther, her son, her grandchildren, and the other inhabitants of the island. Harding treats his characters with such compassion and respect that the reader can’t help but fall in love and admire their strength of spirit when we learn of their extreme poverty, hardscrabble existence, quirks and oddities, and heartaches. They know nothing of the world outside their community and have minimal contact from the mainlanders except for Matthew Diamond, a retired schoolteacher, who comes and provides education for the children. His good intentions to make life better for the islanders has increased the attention from the mainlanders, who are appalled and judgmental of these mixed-race people, the inbreeding that has resulted from generations of isolation, and their living conditions. Disastrous and heartbreaking consequences will be the result.
This Other Eden is based on a true story of Malaga Island off the coast of Maine when, in 1912, the government evicted the islanders, eliminated all trace of their existence, and sent some to institutes for the “feeble minded.” The power of Harding’s writing is unequalled as this powerful story will break your heart, and the inhumanity inflicted will haunt you long after the book is closed; but it is a story that must be told.
--The Historical Novels Review, February 2023--

This is a beautifully written novel, that almost reads like poetry at times, that explores a historical island community off the coast of Maine and the ways that society and culture shape and influence the way we see and live in the world. The descriptions in this book are searing and I genuinely felt transported to the island while reading this book. Absolutely stunning.

This latest novel by Paul Harding is a moving story about the mixed race inhabitants of Apple Island, drawn from the history of the people from Malaga Island off the coast of Maine who were evicted by the state. I was not aware of this event till I picked up this book. The storytelling was done in a unique way using lovely prose and lengthy sentences to pack an emotional punch. It’s easy to detect empathy for these souls from the writing.

The story starts off when the first inhabitants of Apple Island Benjamin Honey, a former slave and his wife Patience, an Irish descendant are in a devastating Hurricane in the 1790’s. It’s vividly told by Patience, using biblical references to Noah’s arc, then shifts to Esther’s story as she retells the event to her grandchildren nearly a century later. There are several family members to keep track of; mixed race and probably inbred, impoverished and malnourished, but living harmonious lives in shanty-type homes. Then a well- intentioned former teacher named Matthew visits the island to provide education for the children. This sets the stage for the eugenics team to investigate this community with plans to evict the residents.

This novel has themes of racial prejudice, family bonds, survival, poverty and displacement. There are passages throughout that refer to biblical stories as well as Shakespeare references and would appeal to those interested in historical and rural fiction.

Published by W. W. Norton & Company on January 24, 2023

This Other Eden is based on one of the countless dark moments in American history, the moments when the government interferes with the lives of people who are causing no harm to serve the interests of greed and intolerance. The novel is set in a time when eugenics, a pseudo-science rooted in racism, became a weapon that governments wielded against the powerless.

The novel’s Apple Island is, in the words of a woman who lived there, “a poor little island of such poor dear souls.” In a broad sense, the story parallels the tragedy of Malaga Island, an enclave of mixed-race settlers who were evicted and sometimes institutionalized under the pretext of protecting Maine from feeble minds.

Paul Harding imagines Apple Island as a place settled by Benjamin Honey, a former slave, and Patience Honey, a Galway girl, in 1793. Benjamin planted apple trees in the hope of creating a new Eden. He and Patience raised a family. By 1815, the island had thirty residents. In 1911, Esther Honey, great-granddaughter of Benjamin and Patience, tells the story of the 1815 hurricane that devastated Apple Island. She does not know that the island will soon be devastated by the government of Maine, although when it happens, the island’s fate does not surprise her. She knows that powerful white men feel the need to disturb people like her.

By 1911, Apple Island’s population consists of three extended families (the Honeys, the Larks, and the McDermotts), as well as Annie Parker, who lives alone, and Zachary Hand to God Proverbs, who spends most of his time carving biblical images inside a hollow tree. The islanders have inherited traits from “African fathers and Irish mothers, Penobscot grandmothers and Swedish grandpas.” Theophilus and Candace Lark claim to be cousins but are likely brother and sister; only four of their nine children lived. Cheryl Sockalexis (who might be a Native American) and her three children move to the island but Cheryl leaves when she feels assured that the islanders will care for her kids.

Apart from the Larks’ consensual incest, an unwelcome pregnancy caused by a father who raped his daughter plays a role in the island’s history, as does the victim’s secret vengeance. In other respects, Apple Island is just another small fishing village, not much different than mainland villages, its residents eking out lives with some help from relief supplies that rarely match their needs.

A missionary to the island, Matthew Diamond, provides instruction to the children. He is surprised that Emily Sockalexis is a math whiz, that Tabitha Honey easily learns Latin, and that Ethan Honey is a skilled artist. Matthew arranges for Ethan to live with the Hales in Massachusetts, where he might be given an opportunity to attend art school. That dream is jeopardized by Ethan’s dalliance with an Irish servant. Thomas Hale is utterly opposed to miscegenation.

Underlying the story is Maine’s embrace of eugenics and its creation of a Governor’s Commission to study and determine the fate of Apple Island residents. The white men who measure and observe the residents find them wanting. A decision is made to evict them all, sending some to an institution for the feeble minded.

The story focuses on the difficult but harmless lives of the islanders and their powerlessness in the face of a government that envisions Apple Island as a tourism destination, one that would not attract tourists if occupied by mixed-race residents. Whether they are sharp or dull and regardless of their skin color, the islanders are ultimately a collection of people who get along with each other, depend on each other, and call the island home. Apple Island is far from utopia but, unlike the mainland, it is free from racism and greed. The islanders are decent people whose lives are upended, whose roots are destroyed by men who are confident that white skin assures their moral superiority.

Harding tells a simple story with pitch-perfect prose. Compassion bleeds from his sentences. Harding’s focus on the characters channels the reader’s attention away from the larger social injustice to the impact that injustice has upon individuals. The novel’s point is that humans deserve to be treated with the dignity to which individuals are entitled. Inbreeding might have impaired some residents of Apple Island, but that harm is minor in comparison to the harm inflicted by the entitled proponents of eugenics. You don’t need to be a social justice warrior to appreciate the beauty and power of Harding’s indictment of government policies that destroy families and communities.

RECOMMENDED

A slim novel that packs a punch. Know in advance that this isn't the easiest read - that sentences can be a paragraph long, that there are no chapters, and that thing occasionally trail off into other subjects. However, Harding has a lot to offer in this story based in fact about the effective destruction of an island community when it is discovered first by a missionary and then by the eugenics movement. The residents of the island are, for the most part, quite different from what was considered the norm at the time- mixed race, neurodiverse, and and so on so splitting them up and sending them to institutions is seen as the most appropriate solution to what the outsiders perceive as the problem. It's not of course. If I have a quibble with this it's that it is hard to connect with any one particular character. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Thought provoking. For fans of literary fiction.

I received this from Netgalley.com.

Dense with historical data, and "inspired by the true story of the once racially integrated Malaga Island off the coast of Maine.

Such a conundrum because it was the characters that made the history. Although I found the history interesting, I was never truly vested in the characters.

2.5☆

Historical fiction at its best poetically written atmospheric.Based on actual facts the lives of the people on this small Island characters that come alive.Haunting dark a story I will remember.#netgalley #theothereden.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This historical fiction novel is inspired by the true story of Malaga Island, off the coast of Maine, which was home to an interracial fishing community from the mid-1800s to 1912. While it is uncertain how Malaga Island was founded, there are two theories. The first is that it was a place where sailors dropped their lovers before returning home, and the second is that it was a stop on the underground railroad. Either way, most of the residents are believed to be descendants of a former slave, Benjamin Darling.

In this book, Apple Island’s founders are former slave Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience. 100 years after Benjamin and Patience, the Honey family’s descendants are living in isolation and dire poverty. Relief societies provide some supplies, and eventually provide a teacher, Mr. Diamond. Unfortunately, that is the beginning of the end for the island as it was determined that all the residents needed to be relocated. As this was the heyday of the eugenics movement, many were relocated to institutions, and sterilization was forced on them. The basis for eviction was eugenics, and quite contrary to their beliefs that some residents are “feeble-minded,” the teacher counted among his students a brilliant artist, a math prodigy who surpassed Mr. Diamond’s knowledge, and another fluent in Latin. Nevertheless, the state went ahead with its plans and exhumed the cemetery to discourage anyone from returning to the island.

The book’s main focus is on the unusual population, and we learn how hard it is to survive on the island. While the story itself is compelling and led me to read about the real Malaga Island, I had a hard time with the writing. The characters are fully developed and bring you into the story, but the writing style took away from my attention. Point of view changes from first person to third person, creating an interruption when I had to go back and figure out who was speaking. Dialog is not set apart with quotes, so I needed to reread to figure out who was talking, and sentences would go on for long paragraphs, sometimes meandering so I would lose my thoughts. It’s definitely challenging, but worthwhile.

This Other Eden tells the story of Apple Island and its inhabitants, the descendants of Benjamin and Patience Honey. Based on the true story of Malaga Island, one of the first integrated towns in the Northeast, the book follows the fate of the Honey family and Apple Island itself.

For such a short volume, it manages to capture an array of emotions. Alternating between the stories of the island's settlers and documentation from an outsider's perspective - that of the mainlanders and a future historical museum - the narrative gives the reader the feeling of being part of the islanders' community. Throughout the story, characters leave the island, characters arrive on the island, and well-meaning characters end up causing the upheaval of life as the islanders know it. The novel deals with social commentary in a "tell it like it is" fashion - Harding expects the reader to keep up and understand what the story is trying to communicate, and it does so in a way that doesn't make this reader feel like an idiot grasping at straws like some literary fiction can.

I'm a fan of family sagas, and this is a rich one that dives deep without becoming a tome. It's the right length for the story it wants to tell, and Harding proves that you don't need in excess of three hundred pages to write something that makes the reader feel like they really know the family and its journey.

I'm very glad I read this book - it excels at what it is trying to accomplish, and does so in a way that is moving and heartbreaking. If you too enjoy family sagas, I recommend this one for a cold winter day.

Thank you to NetGalley and W. W. Norton for providing a copy for review.

A superb achievement, Pulitzer Prize–winner Harding’s (Enon, 2013) third novel fictionalizes a shameful true episode in American history. In 1912, the mixed-race residents of Malaga Island off Maine’s coast, who had lived there for generations, were forcibly removed for reasons of “public health” and tourism development. The pseudoscience of eugenics lay behind the decision. In Harding’s version, Esther Honey is the matriarch of a poor, close-knit family of African and Irish descent; other residents on Apple Island include the Lark family, the McDermott sisters, their Penobscot foster children, and eccentric carpenter Zachary Hand to God Proverbs. When retired schoolteacher Matthew Diamond arrives to preach and teach, he recognizes his prejudice yet finds several gifted pupils, including 15-year-old, light-skinned Ethan Honey, a talented artist. Events spiral downward when a committee from the governor’s council takes notice and comes to investigate. The injustice they impose feels infuriating. Harding combines an engrossing plot with deft characterizations and alluring language deeply attuned to nature’s artistry. The biblical parallels, which naturally align with the characters’ circumstances, add depth, and enhance the universality of the themes. Readers must gingerly parse some winding, near-paragraph-long sentences, but this gorgeously limned portrait about family bonds, the loss of innocence, the insidious effects of racism, and the innate worthiness of individual lives will resonate long afterward. (Written for Booklist, Dec 2022 issue)