This Other Eden
Pulitzer Prize Winner Paul Harding begins his historical novel This Other Eden by describing the great flood on an island in the Kennebec River near Gardiner and Richmond. Malaga Island with its notorious history is named Apple Island in this story. Apple trees planted by hardworking residents grow and life goes on among Penobscots and Irish and Blacks and whites.
Living is not easy but the survivors of mainland shunning find togetherness on this island not too far from shore. A summer school teacher begins working with kids and he finds many knowledgeable in the Bible and Shakespeare…even some Latin, too, among this mixed group.
When Charles Darwin’s son, Major Leonard Darwin, spouts his eugenics in London, local Massachusetts doctors take note. They visit Apple Island with the school teacher in tow.
Get that damned ice picker away from his head. Violet gathered Scotty close and cradled his head against her bosom.
The doctor stopped and picked the calipers up and wiped them clean…
The invasive doctors went about their business while Matthew Diamond, their caring school teacher, observed in horror.
The doctor continued measuring Eha, murmuring to the intern, Mulatto; high-grade imbecile, or moron…
The school teacher wanted the visitors to know that some Apple Island residents could recite Hamlet even though pictures of current people and places were strange to them.
Photos were taken for medical documents and many later misused for cheap post cards with cheap captions for jokes. Sounds like today’s misuse of AI or other media mishandling of actual news?
One student was a gifted still life artist even though chalk was his only means of expression. How great that he was provided a stimulating place to move where his artistic talents were developed. All because of a caring summer school teacher.
The good, the bad, and the ugly are all revealed in this historical novel. Maybe some of you saw the Malaga Island exhibition at our Augusta State Museum before COVID? It took place 100 years after the island residents were forcefully removed. Relatives of island dwellers live in the Belgrade area and know this sad development in Maine history.
None of the islanders or their ancestors had ever paid taxes or had a bank account…They’d just lived on the island for more than a century, neither much helped nor hindered by the people on the main.
Official documents issued to the islanders to leave meant nothing to them. Some stuffed the government eviction notice under a rock where an ancient Sears catalogue was kept.
Supposedly the island was cleared by the government and cemetery moved in order to develop a resort. Too many residents were placed in inappropriate places like homes for imbeciles, etc. A very unfortunate Maine tale based on government encroachment and mishandling of an integrated society that worked in spite of its poverty.
The art work of individuals on the island was part of the Augusta exhibition. I wish a few of these intricate drawings were included in this novel of island history. Perhaps I will now do an internet search. Always something new to learn and then go swimming in the lake.
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