This Other Eden

This Other Eden (2023) is a novel by Paul Harding. It is based on the real-life community of Malaga Island, a racially diverse island community off the coast of Maine that was evicted by the government in 1912. This Other Eden is Harding’s third novel; his first, Tinkers, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. This Other Eden enjoyed critical success, including being shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. The novel follows the Honey family on Apple Island—a reimagined Malaga Island—capturing a moment in which eugenics exerted pressure on racially diverse and economically disadvantaged communities. The novel’s characters face intense prejudice but find support and strength through artistic endeavors and strong family legacies.

This guide refers to the hardcover first edition, published in 2023 by W. W. Norton and Company.

Content Warning: This guide includes depictions of racism, discrimination, forced eviction, eugenics, nonconsensual relationships, and rape.

Plot Summary

Benjamin Honey, a rumored formerly enslaved man, and his Irish wife, Patience, settle on an island off the coast of Maine in 1793. Benjamin’s only memory of his mother is from an apple orchard, so he plants an orchard and names the land Apple Island. Over 100 years later, his great-granddaughter, Esther Honey, tells the story of an 1815 hurricane that sent a flood across the island, wiping out houses and families. The Honeys, led by Patience and Benjamin, climbed the Penobscot pine, the tallest tree on the island, and when Patience raises a homemade flag that she stitched for Benjamin, the flood recedes. Much of the community, and Benjamin’s orchard, is lost to the flood.

After 100 years, only the Honeys, Larks, and McDermotts live on the island, as well as Zachary Hand to God Proverbs and Annie Parker. Additionally, Matthew Diamond, a white man from the mainland, teaches the children and preaches sermons during the summer. Esther distrusts Matthew, worrying about the attention he brings to their community. When he arrives during the summer of 1911, a committee from the state government soon follows.

The mainland, inspired by the rise of eugenics, is concerned about the island and disapproves of the racially diverse, impoverished community. The committee interviews and studies the people living on the island to decide if the community should be allowed to remain. Matthew sees the visit as dehumanizing, and in the weeks after the visit, news breaks on the mainland of the “degenerative” nature of the island and its residents. The state decides that the residents of Apple Island will be evicted for public health reasons, with many committed to the State School for the Feebleminded.

Ethan Honey, the grandson of Esther, shows a talent for drawing, and Matthew secures supplies for him. Matthew knows of the coming eviction, and he secures Ethan a place on a friend’s Massachusetts estate, where he will be able to prepare for art school. After a discussion with Esther and Ethan’s father, Matthew convinces them to allow Ethan to leave. Esther knows that Matthew selected Ethan because, unlike the rest of his family, he appears white; as such, he will be accepted on the mainland.

As Ethan’s departure approaches, life on the island goes on. While Esther watches her grandchildren on the shore, she remembers the birth of Eha, whose father was her own father. She remembers trying to kill herself and Eha, only to be saved and cared for by Zachary. As she recovers from the birth, she pushes her father off a nearby bluff, killing him. She loves her grandchildren and will miss Ethan. The community throws a banquet for Ethan, marking the last time all the islanders gather before the eviction.

When Ethan arrives on Thomas Hale’s estate, he meets Bridget Carney, a maid from Ireland. They bond over their shared island identities. Despite being nervous, Bridget is intrigued by Ethan and convinces him to let her watch him paint. They soon begin a romantic relationship. Ethan paints Bridget’s portrait, mixing droplets of their blood into red paint and painting a strawberry in the background to capture them. One morning, Bridget finds drawings and a photograph that show Ethan is not white. Hale sees Bridget leaving Ethan’s quarters, and he evicts Ethan for improper behavior.

Back on Apple Island, the governor of Maine visits with his committee. Matthew Diamond pleads with him to make improvements to the island instead of evicting the residents, but the committee insists on the eviction. One of the members gives Matthew a telegraph from Hale, and Matthew reluctantly tells Esther and Eha that Ethan is gone from the estate and that they too will have to leave the island. When the others in the community receive the eviction notices, they treat them with both rage and resignation. The Larks and Annie Parker will be placed under state control at the State School for the Feebleminded. Bridget soon comes looking for Ethan, and Esther sees that she is pregnant.

When the sheriff brings a team to the island to collect the Larks and Annie Parker, chaos breaks out. Candace Parker moves to take her daughter Rabbit from one of the men but trips and falls into him. The officers perceive this as an attack and begin beating Candace. In the mayhem, a stray swing of a billy club strikes Rabbit in the head and kills her. Zachary rages at the men for their murderous interference and only calms down when he sees Esther crying, realizing that the rage he warned her against is in him.

Eha disassembles the family’s cabin and loads it onto a raft with his mother, daughters, and Bridget, heading for the mainland. Eha plans to return to the island to leave a secret path with clues for Ethan to find their new home on the mainland.

With the families gone, men from the mainland come to the island and burn down the remaining structures. They dig up the graves of the island’s deceased, with plans to move them to the mainland. As the day wanes, more and more men quit, until only two remain. As night falls, one of the men sees Zachary wading across the channel with Patience Honey’s flag raised above his head.