This Other Eden

Content Warning: This guide includes depictions of racism, discrimination, forced eviction, eugenics, nonconsensual relationships, and rape.

In This Other Eden, the motif of trees represents the legacy of the islanders, their lives together on Apple Island, and their connection to the land. The community itself was founded by a man seeking to plant an apple orchard to reconnect with the memory of his mother, and trees play an important role in the stories of the islanders’ ancestors. When a hurricane threatens to wipe out the entire Honey family, it is a Penobscot pine that provides the refuge. As the water rises across the island, the Honey family climbs the tree and clings to it for survival. The tree stands firm, not toppling in the flood and providing the Honeys with a strong anchor to wait out the flood. While not all the Honey’s survive the storm, Patience, Benjamin, and the baby Patience holds do survive, and all Honey descendants owe their lives to the tree.

Trees are also homes to the residents of Apple Island. Whether they live in a tree, such as Zachary Hand to God Proverbs does, or in a house constructed from the wood of a tree, like the Honeys do, trees continue to provide shelter and protect the residents like the Penobscot pine once did in the hurricane.