This Other Eden A Novel

<p>Shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize<br> Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize<br> Finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction<br> Shortlisted for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award<br> <br> One of Barack Obama's 15 favorite books of 2023 • A New Yorker Best Books of 2023 • An NPR 2023 "Book We Love" Pick and Top 10 Book of 2023 • One of Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 • One of the New York Times's 100 Notable Books of 2023 and Best Historical Fiction of 2023 • A Chicago Public Library Favorite Book of 2023 • A Fresh Air Top 10 Best Book of 2023 • A Publishers Weekly Best Fiction of 2023<br> <br> "A testament of love." —Danez Smith, New York Times Book Review<br> <br> 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.</p> <p>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 desperately poor, isolated, and often hungry, but nevertheless protected from the hostility awaiting them on the mainland.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p>