When browsing at the local bookstore I saw this new work from Paul Harding, I remembered how much I loved Tinkers. And Eden – it sounds so paradisiacal …right?

Oof! Eden stories don’t end well.

And Tinkers is really heavy. I remember loving it?

Paul Harding writes beautifully about terrible things. This Other Eden is historical fiction of an island off Maine that was an Eden for people who were shut out of the good parts of American life. The state of Maine evicted all inhabitants in 1912. Mr. Harding has recreated the lives of those who were expelled.

After finishing I thought about this quote from Franklin Roosevelt: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

The people of this little island had too little. The state crushed and took what little they had. Surely there was a more elegant solution.

Have we made any progress?

Oof. 3.75 stars. Hard to see humanity at its worst.