In his latest novel, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Paul Harding fictionalizes Maine’s Malaga Island

This Other Eden, Paul Harding’s third novel, is short but lands with the weight of prophecy. Inspired by a true, shameful episode in Maine history, the book begins with a quote from the Maine Coast Heritage Trust about the island of Malaga, home to “a multiracial fishing community from the mid-19th century until 1912, when the state of Maine was expelled 47 Residents from their homes and exhumed and transferred their buried dead….”

Harding’s plot follows the bare outlines of these real-world islanders: a peaceful community is banished from their longtime homeland in what is essentially a government land grab, many of them drafted into institutions, victims of racial evictions and bureaucratic bungling. Harding’s novel makes tragedy tangible and haunting, revealing a long-buried story with an intimacy and power that is difficult to shake.

The setting is the fictional Apple Island, settled in 1793 by formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and Patience, his Irish immigrant wife. Apple Island is “barely three hundred feet across a channel from the mainland, just under forty-two acres…the only human trace is an abandoned penobscot shell berm…”. Life on the island was possible, the descendants say, because “in the last years of the 18th century it was not so dangerous for black men to roam the country. Any able-bodied adult who kept the peace and helped survive was accepted.”

Benjamin plants apple seeds in honor of his mother; Trees eventually thrive and bear fruit. But the Honeys’ Eden is also suffering from a flood that nearly wipes them out. This origin story is told and retold, known “as well as that from the Bible” and passed on by the survivors of the Flood to their descendants.

These descendants have endured racism, hunger and the harshest conditions. They are resourceful, self-sufficient, deeply impoverished. In some cases, inbreeding has resulted in mental and physical oddities that the state considers suspicious. A sanctuary from the dangers they face on an inhospitable mainland, their homeland absorbs outcasts and newcomers seeking shelter. But by 1911, the present of the novel, the community has dwindled to a handful of close-knit families:

“And there were the last Honeys – the fourth, fifth and sixth generation distillate of Angolan fathers and Scottish grandfathers, Irish mothers and Congolese grannies, Cape Verdean uncles and Penobscot aunts, cousins ​​from Dingle, Glasgow and Montserrat, the wind pounding, the snow swirled, their stomachs growled, their toes and fingers burned black into icicles and filled the cooling wood stove…. Noah had his ark. The Honeys had Apple Island.”

Esther Honey is the moral force and intellectual center of the novel, the survivor of a brutal past (including being raped by her father) who is the first to recognize the dangers posed by mainland do-gooders whose zeal is encouraged by the eugenics movement becomes. Esther watches over a remarkable group of family members and neighbors and understands that their best chance of survival is their ability to live and work in harmony with each other and with nature. The McDermott sisters are laundresses who take in three Penobscot orphans. The gender-nonconforming larks have free-ranging children, including Rabbit, who appears to outsiders as wild and “moronic” but is actually the “crown princess of Apple Island… girl and island were dearly loved.” Zachary Hand to God Proverbs is a far-sighted Civil War veteran who carves a life of stories into a hollow tree.

When Matthew Diamond, a white teacher whose bigotry is wrapped in progressive ideals, opens an island school, he sets the stage for an ominous intervention. Diamond is as determined to save the children of Apple Island as he is secretly repelled by their elders, and Esther has his number:

“(She) didn’t like him and felt more than ever as if he were signaling doom, but something about what he was trying to make of the Scriptures intrigued her, against her will. His ideas chased their own tails and he was a staunch, chronic hand wringer, and he seemed to let every mayor, doctor, minister, and judge of Apple Island hear, but the man was well-read and thoughtful…she knew he was wrestling with something specific and well intentioned in mind. For example, if he ever organized his thoughts and let his tongue loose, he could write something as good as one of Shakespeare’s worst couplets. …Awful how awfully good intentions fail almost every time.”

Esther and Matthew form a friendship of sorts, discussing Shakespeare and the Bible (he is surprised at how literate she is); but even as his admiration grows, the Apple Islanders find themselves on a disastrous collision course with the state.

The novel’s revelation comes from its lyrical language and a measured rhythm that draws near to its inexorable conclusion. At the beginning of the novel, I wondered if the poetic, lush prose might not unduly alleviate the intense pain at the heart of the story. But Harding’s language is his forte, reaching a mythic, captivating power. Its pacing and philosophical attention feels like a throwback, resisting the shallow ephemerality of our time. We can see the guilt to the transcendentalists and Harding’s literary lineage with his teacher, the great Marilynne Robinson.

A key observation here is how difficult—and essential—it is to strive to see the full scope of others’ experiences. And what tragedy ensues when we fail. A breathtaking section describing how Esther’s taciturn and capable son Eha, with Zachary’s help, cuts down a mighty jaw and builds her sturdy house board by board is closely followed by a section describing the disgust of a civil servant who comes to issue eviction orders spread and sees only “dirty, ragged animals”.

Esther’s grandson Ethan, a teenage artist “saved” through Matthew’s intercession, is sent to Massachusetts to study art with a wealthy benefactor (he’s not the only talented island kid, but Ethan is chosen because he’s considered white). It is during this stay that Ethan meets and falls in love with Bridget Carney, a young Irish maid whose fate later tangles with the Honeys.

It must be noted that Harding is a white writer creating black and brown characters. Valuable criticism has raised the question: Can and should writers write “out of their lane”? This risks cliches and awkwardness; at worst, it can do real harm. Harding casts aside doubt and focuses on what fiction is uniquely primed to do: each indelible character is created from the inside out with the utmost care and empathy. In these pages we feel the fullness of experience – not only of Esther Honey and Rabbit Lark and Zachary Hand to God Proverbs and all their neighbors – but also in the sad case of Matthew Diamond, doomed to belatedly admit his ignorance and blindness understanding has cost. All are out of Harding’s – or any contemporary writer’s – lane. And all are noticeably brought to life.

Tragedy possesses a mysterious alchemical power to simultaneously break and expand our hearts. Mainers can and should learn the true history of the island of Málaga, which is more available than ever thanks to the important work of the descendants of the islanders, the Maine State Archivist and others. This Other Eden invites us to feel deeply the injustice imposed by well-meaning and righteous people; and in doing so, how we might abandon our most vulnerable and least understood neighbors today.

This radiant novel will leave readers shocked and grateful – and haunted by complex, layered characters who live, breathe, suffer and drift, sailing into an unknown future.

Genanne Walsh is the author of the novel Twister and the forthcoming anthology Eggs in Purgatory. She lives in Portland.