THE LAST DAYS OF ELLIS ISLAND
By Gaëlle Josse
Translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer
BOOK DESCRIPTION
A man looks back on his long tenure at America’s former entry point.
New York, November 3, 1954. In a few days, the immigration inspection station on Ellis Island will close its doors forever. John Mitchell, an officer of the Bureau of Immigration, is the guardian and last resident of the island. As Mitchell looks back over forty-five years as gatekeeper to America and its promise of a better life, he recalls his brief marriage to beloved wife Liz, and is haunted by memories of a transgression involving Nella, an immigrant from Sardinia. Told in a series of poignant diary entries, this is a story of responsibility, love, fidelity, and remorse.
'In the tale of this fictional bureaucrat, Josse powerfully evokes the spirit of the “huddled masses” who landed on America’s shores while creating a memorable portrait of a man torn between his commitment to his difficult job and the longings of his heart.’ Kirkus starred review
ELLIS ISLAND, NOVEMBER 3, 1954, 10 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. Everything that follows took place at sea. On the sea, on two ships, which docked here once upon a time. For me it was as though they never left again, it was the flesh of my flesh and of my soul that they rammed with their anchors and their grap- ple hooks. Everything I believed to be solid burned to ash. In a few days, I’ll be done with this island that has consumed my life. Done with this island of which I am the last guardian and the last prisoner. Done with this island, though I know almost nothing of the world outside. I’ll be taking no more than a couple of suitcases and one or two pieces of furniture with me.
A few boxes filled with memories. My life. I have just nine days left before the men from the Federal Immigration Service arrive to officially shut down the Ellis Island immigration station. I have been told that they’ll be arriving early, first thing next Friday morning, November 12.
We’ll do one last tour of the island together and complete the inventory; I’ll hand over the keys to all the doors, gates, warehouses, sheds, desks, and together we’ll leave for Manhattan.
Then it’ll be time for me to go through the final formalities inside one of those glass and steel buildings whose windows look, from afar, like the countless cells of a beehive, a gray vertical beehive, in a place where I’ve set foot no more than a dozen times over all these years, and at last I’ll be free. At least that’s what they’ll say to me, with that mixture of pity and envy you might feel for a colleague who, one day at a fixed time, is informed that he is no longer part of the group, is no longer an element of what has become over the years a kind of collective existence, made up of more or less shared concerns and objectives. He must leave the pack, like an old animal moving away to die, while the herd contin- ues on without him. Often this rite of passage is marked by a depressing ceremony. Hackneyed speeches, reminiscences about some shared success, beer, whiskey, a few slaps on the back, and promises of future celebrations that everyone feels obliged to make and forgets at once, and then the per- son being feted weaves his way home, clutching a new fishing line or tool belt. I’ll be happy to avoid all that. I have a small apartment waiting for me in Williamsburg in Brooklyn that I inherited from my par- ents. Three rooms still filled with all their furniture, which I haven’t touched; their entire lives embedded between the walls— pictures, ornaments, dishes. Truth be told, I am dreading going back there, I’ve enough of my own memories without having to deal with theirs, but that’s where I was born and I have no other place to go, and I figure it doesn’t matter much now.
AUTHOR BIO
Gaëlle Josse holds degrees in law, journalism, and clinical psychology. Formerly a poet, she published her first novel, Les Heures silencieuses (‘The Quiet Hours’), in 2011. Josse went on to win several awards, including the Alain Fournier Award in 2013 for Nos vies désaccordées (‘Our Out-Of-Tune Lives’). After spending a few years in New Caledonia, she returned to Paris, where she now works and lives. Josse received the European Union Prize for Literature for The Last Days of Ellis Island, along with the Grand Livre du Mois Literary Prize.
Natasha Lehrer won a Rockower Award for Journalism in 2016, and in 2017 was awarded the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize for her translation of Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Léger.
“Combining real and fictional events, Gaëlle Joss
PUBLICATION DATE: 24th November 2020
PUBLISHER: World Editions
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