This Other Eden – Paul Harding

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After inhabiting Apple Island for six generations, the small, multi-racial community face the authorities who decide its time to “cleanse” them. Real events that happened to the people of Malaga Island in 1911.

● While I appreciate that Paul Harding has educated the reading world about the plight of a group of people in history who were displaced and mistreated, I don’t feel like I heard from the people themselves. More, the story was about what happened to them, without their input on the physical, emotional and cultural consequences.

Some parts of the story were compelling but others were wordy and cumbersome and my attention waned, resulting in a bit of re-reading. I finished the book interested in the history and feeling sympathy for these people, but unsatisfied in the reading experience, as if there is still more story to tell. – Rachel

And it seemed as if by sending him off to paint his beautiful pictures they all might somehow unhouse homelessness, might somehow bankrupt poverty. It seemed to all of them that evening as if they somehow might even starve hunger itself.

● I’m looking forward to the research of this book as it definitely feels like the events are unconscionable enough that they could be based on real historical events. There was little solace and the island residents being seen as not quite human brought to mind the treatment of the Aboriginal people in Australia.

With novels like this I often think geez I wish the author could just give us a bit of joy, but any glimmer of hope in This Other Eden would have been misplaced. – Suzy

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Published 2023
W W Norton & Co
224 pages