This Other Eden: A Novel

May 2024 Book

Harding’s Novella is a perplexing, honest, and layered journey through a mixed race New England family. It explores through this family various themes including race and identity, family history, trauma, along with personal growth. The “Honey” family are an interesting choice of agents to play out these themes. Mostly because they lack agency in most cases. The themes of the book are represented by how events are acted upon the family rather than what they do. Getting to these resolutions and plot developments is surprisingly challenging for a book this length. Harding uses a slow build up in pace and time jumping complexity to bring the reader along. You have to stay with it for the surprises and turns to arrive. Even then, it was lacking in many ways. The characters were two dimensional and served more as mile markers for the overall journey of a family. The theme of family is perhaps the single most important one in this book. Broken families and generational trauma are the foundational elements on which all other events span from. Religion, race, and self discovery are the framing that contain the moral aspects of the book. They all come together to craft a story that depicts how nothing can remain pure and innocent forever. The world itself is corrupting just by existing in it. Ultimately, I am neutral on this book. It’s not a must read nor would I avoid it. There is something redemptive in it if you don’t mind the pacing, inconsistent time & perspective switches, and flat characters. I would not call it hope but instead an acknowledgment of sorts. An acceptance in the fallibility and fragility of everything. Maybe there is peace in knowing that it’s a story as old as time.