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Title details for This Other Eden by Paul Harding - Available

This Other Eden

by Paul Harding
Edoardo Ballerini
Audiobook
51 of 53 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
51 of 53 copies available
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Tinkers, a novel inspired by the true story of Malaga Island, an isolated island off the coast of Maine that became one of the first racially integrated towns in the Northeast.
In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island where they can make a life together. Over a century later, the Honeys' descendants and a diverse group of neighbors are poor, isolated, and often
hungry, but nevertheless protected from the hostility awaiting them on the mainland.
During the tumultuous summer of 1912, Matthew Diamond, a retired, idealistic but prejudiced schoolteacher turned missionary, disrupts the community's fragile balance through his efforts to educate its children. His presence attracts the
attention of authorities on the mainland who, under the influence of the eugenics-thinking popular among progressives of the day, decide to forcibly evacuate the island, institutionalize its residents, and develop the island as a
vacation destination. Beginning with a hurricane flood reminiscent of the story of Noah's ark, the novel ends with yet another ark.
In prose of breathtaking beauty and power, Paul Harding brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters: Iris and Violet McDermott, sisters raising three Penobscot orphans; Theophilus and Candace Larks and their brood of vagabond
children; the prophetic Zachary Hand to God Proverbs, a Civil War veteran wholives in a hollow tree; Ethan Honey, a young artist; and Bridget Carney, an Irish housemaid. A spellbinding story of resistance and survival, This Other Eden is an
enduring testament to the struggle to preserve human dignity in the face of intolerance and injustice.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    January 24, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781705090244
      • File size: 177025 KB
      • Duration: 06:08:48

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from November 28, 2022
      Pulitzer winner Harding (Tinkers) suffuses deep feeling into this understated yet wrenching story inspired by an isolated mixed-raced community’s forced resettlement in 1912 Maine. Formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish-born wife Patience settled Apple Island more than a century earlier. Now, the hardscrabble community includes gender-bending and incestuous siblings Theophilus and Candace Lark and their four, mentally disabled children; a Civil War veteran named Zachary Hand to God Proverbs, who lives in a hollow tree; Irish sisters Iris and Violet McDermott, who raise three orphaned Penobscot children; and the Honeys’ descendents. Christian missionary and retired schoolteacher Matthew Diamond has spent the past five years visiting the island during the summer to teach the community’s children. A deeply prejudiced man, he prays for the strength to overcome his “visceral, involuntary repulsion” to Black people, and is continually shocked at the children’s quick minds as well as Ethan Honey’s talent for drawing. With eugenics on the rise, the state sets in motion a plan to clear the island and Diamond contrives to send Ethan to a colleague in Massachusetts, where he can pass as white and study art. Harding’s close-third narration gives shape and weight to the community members’ complicated feelings about their displacement, while his magisterial prose captures a sense of place (“the island a granite pebble in the frigid Atlantic shallows”). It’s a remarkable achievement.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In 1912, Maine's governor forcibly evacuated a small community from their Malaga Island home, claiming the mixed-race inhabitants were morally and mentally deficient. This novel, narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, is based on this tragic event. Ballerini's lyrical delivery highlights the poetic descriptions of the island's physical environment and the comfortable rhythms of daily life, bolstering listeners' empathy for the families struggling to do their best with what little they have. His tone becomes more straightforward when the narrative changes to historical documents and is gruffer when white male authorities begin to disrupt and disband the community. The character study draws a harsh, vivid distinction between the insular island people and the self-righteous outsiders who want to take over the island for their own use. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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