The largest family was the Honey family. Esther and her son, as well as her son's three children all live together. It is a hard existence, but they generally have what they need to survive. Benjamin Honey, a formerly enslaved man, and his Irish wife Patience settled the island in the late 1700's. They made it through storms and hardships, and Esther and the kids are still there.
Zachary Hand to God Proverbs is also an island inhabitant. He is an old hermit who lives in a hollowed out tree stump, and he spends his time carving out scenes from the Bible. Although he comes across as pretty crazy most days, he is aware of what is going on and can be protective of the other island inhabitants. The McDermott sisters live together in what used to be a boat with three orphans they are raising. Finally, there is the Lark family--made up of a brother and sister and their four ghostly children. These kids have various disabilities, most likely stemming from the incest, and they often spend nights roaming about the island looking for food.
Matthew Diamond is a white missionary and school teacher who comes to the island during the summer to teach the children. As noble as this is, he keeps himself at arms distance from the kids, and often wrestles with his own disgust of them. When a committee from the mainland comes to the island, it is Matthew Diamond who tours them about, urging its citizens to comply with their requests.
We know what's going to happen way before it does, and it was something I was dreading as I read. The citizens, with mixed motives, decide to evict all the inhabitants of the island. The professed reason for this is health concerns, but racism and greed played a stronger role in their decision. Matthew Diamond, who led the committee to the island in the first place does try to slow them down, but he has no more influence. He does manage to get one of Esther's grandchildren, Ethan, a very talented, artistic teenager who could pass for white, to leave the island in order to study art at a friend's farm.
Ethan Honey is alone and lonely at the farm, but he's progressing very well with books and art supplies that he's never had access to before. Ethan and the Irish maid, Bridget, a very lonely young woman herself, find each other. But when she realizes he's black, everything falls apart and Ethan is forced to run away. We never find out what happened to Ethan, but by that time we know he won't even be able to find his family anymore.
The eviction of the island inhabitants, who had lived their for generations, was very difficult to read about. The people with the power were so sure of their rightness that they did not stop to think about the island inhabitants as people or what damage they might be doing to them. But the island wasn't a real Eden, too. The families were barely scraping by, sometimes in very poor circumstances. The Lark family, especially, was disturbing. Between the incest and the children, it certainly seemed like they needed help. Unfortunately, as it turned out, every single one of them had been better off on the island--before the interference of the outsiders.
Like many of Barack Obama's books this year, this was not especially fun to read. There are dark stories, struggling families, and deep injustice. However, it was well-written and memorable.
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