## Review Date #note/sourcereview/book | #source/book📚/fiction | #source/book📚/ingested ## What is the story This Other Eden is a heartbreaking and brief novel about an island off the coast of Maine that was populated by a family group originating with the seeding of generations by a black man and a white Irish woman in the late 1700's. The family was largely left alone, probably for racist reasons, for over 100 years. However, in the early 1900's they were "helped" by a priest who tried to educate them, with some successes. However, he opened them up to investigation by the outside world while trying to help them. The story ends with their forced eviction under the guise of their unfitness. The "science" of the time drove the same ideas behind other forms of societal cleansing such as Nazis in Europe. The language is enthralling, the sense of time and place is distinct, and the book raises challenging questions about how we follow the ideas of the day, as well as how [[you can't only do one thing]]. ## What else do I wonder about? What parts of this are true? ## Action Embrace [[epistemic humility]] ## When do I want to stumble across this? Probably never again, it was a difficult story that challenged me at every page turn. And it was worth the read. ## Source: Harding, P. (2023). _This other Eden_. Hutchinson Heinemann.