02605cam a2200289 4500 615166809 TxAuBib 20230217120000.0 221208s2023||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2022058144 9781324036296 HRD 28.00 132403629X HRD 28.00 TxAuBib Harding, Paul, 1967-, author. This other Eden [BOOK] : a novel / Paul Harding. 1st ed. New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2023] 221 pages ; 24 cm. "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 BenjaminHoney 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 desperately 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 avacation 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 orphaned Penobscot children; Theophilus and Candace Larks and their brood of vagabond children; the prophetic Zachary Hand to God Proverbs, a Civil War veteran who lives in a hollow tree; and more. 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"-- Provided by publisher. 20230217. Islands Fiction. Families Fiction. Race relations Fiction. Missionaries Fiction. Eugenics Fiction. Historical fiction.