Editor’s note: The story is as lush as Harding’s writing, which takes some pages to adjust to, at least in my case. Long, poetic, descriptive sentences that only the greats can get away with. (Harding is a Pulitzer Prize winner.) His fiction paints a prequel to the factual story of mixed race islanders who were evicted from Malaga Island off the coast of Maine in 1912. The characters Harding develops are fascinating as well as the antagonist, representing both racism and white guilt, a complex calling out of a familiar feeling in most of us.
Excerpt:
“Bridget began to sing to herself, softly, Seotho, seotho lo.
Esther heard the lullaby as part of a dream and it seemed to her she was with her mother and sister and all her old aunties and cousins again, coming back from gathering, singing together in the quiet evening.”