This Other Eden by Paul Harding

This book is on a list of "15 Books You Should Read Now" that the New York Times put out recently, maybe their version of a summer reading list that doesn't include what might be considered beach reads. This is an antiracist book, one that demonstrates subtle shifts in attitudes and deeply held beliefs when what you have been taught to believe is contradicted by your life experience, causing a shift in your world view. It is a book with both text and subtext. The text is this: the story opens on Apple Island, named because of the trees once planted there by the first settlers: a runaway slave, Benjamin Honey, and his Irish wife, Patience. A hundred years later, their descendants get by on scraps of food and tobacco from the mainland. The governor of Maine resolves to evict them from their inherited land, apparently for the sake of “humanity and public health”. The outcome is just what you would expect. The subtext is more subtle. Midway in the story that spans more than a century, we meet a white racist missionary teacher, Matthew Diamond, who wants to teach Latin and Shakespeare to the island’s racially diverse residents. His views are changed by what he experiences there in a nuanced and believable way. The reader is left with a lot to think about as well as a well told tale