Caleb's Crossing: A Novel [Paperback]

I was unfamiliar with Ms. Brooks writing until a friend in the publishing industry handed me an advance copy of this book. Once I read the page I was hooked! Ms. Brooks is a wonderfully gifted writer who has a talent for bringing the past to life. The story is told from the perspective of Berthia Mayfield, a ministers daughter, as she grows up in the late 1600's among the puritan pioneers of the small settlement of Great Harbor-present day Martha's Vineyard. She feels a bit of an outcast as being a woman she can not purse the education she desires. He young days are spent roaming the areas beaches were she encounters the native Wampangoag Indians. She is all of 12 years old whe she first meets the young son of a Chieftain. Caleb is approximately her age and the two form a tentative friendship. Both are curious as to the alien world in which the other lives, and to which both are in there own ways out cast.

Bethia's father attempts to convert the local tribe but he is pitted against the tribes Shaman who's powerful magic has the minister questioning his own convictions. The Minister comes upon the idea to educate the young Caleb in the European tradition, and he eventually is at Harvard studying Greek and Latin. His education is supported by wealthy Patrons as a kind of experiment to see if the wild Indian can be educated. Bethia at the same time manages to go along with Caleb to Harvard she as an indentured servant. She is not sure of her fate but does not want to become a farm wife. Ms. Brooks makes great use of the characters of Caleb and Bethia, both outsiders to illustrate how a repressive dominate culture uses religion to control others who do not always fit into the main stream.

The book is packed full of historical fact and outlook. The story of Caleb is actually thinly based on fact, and Brooks has taken this smaller sliver of history and developed a heck of a story. I look forward to finding Ms. Brooks past books and finding more great reading.

I just finished another wonderful historical ficton novel "The Bridge at Valentine" Set In 1880's Idaho with a main female character that has a lot in common with Bethia.

It was the year of our Lord 1660 when Bethia Mayfield first met Cheeshahteaumauck. Bethia is part of a Puritan community that has broken away from John Winthrop's colony, and Cheeshahteaumauck is one of the Wampanoag people - the son of a chief. Five years later, Cheeshahteaumauck - now known as Caleb Cheeshahteaumauck - became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Very little is known about Caleb's life, which provides very fertile ground for Ms Brooks in writing this novel.

It is called Caleb's crossing, but the character we see the most of is the fictional Bethia. It is Bethia who is able to tell Caleb's story - as she sees it - while undertaking some cultural and life crossings of her own. We largely see Caleb through Bethia's eyes and, through some of their interactions, get some sense of his world and the challenges he faces as he tries to make the most of the different forms of learning he acquires. We learn, too, of the challenges faced by Bethia as she seeks to reconcile what she knows and sees with what she feels and experiences. Bethia is so much a part of her world that she provides a means for the reader to traverse the intervening centuries to recognise (and perhaps to share) her experience. Bethia's view of Caleb's world is limited, and so is ours. Our view of Bethia's world is much clearer and while we might rail against the constraints of her life as a female in a Puritan world, many of us will be familiar with the historical fact of those constraints.

There is beauty in this novel, both in the way in which language is used to convey the sense of the times and also of a natural world which may not be quite as familiar these days. Bethia is our witness to Caleb's life, and to her own. She is not unaware of the sacrifices he makes:

`It has cost you your home, and your health, and estrangement from your closest kinsman.'

I enjoyed this novel, and while I wanted to know more about Caleb, I accept that some crossings are more accessible than others. Bethia is a finely drawn character who brings this period to life.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

A couple of years ago a friend handed me a copy of People of the Book: A Novel, the international bestseller by Geraldine Brooks, thinking I may enjoy it. She was right. Beautifully constructed, the novel follows a rare book expert as she conserves one of the earliest Jewish manuscripts ever illustrated, the priceless Sarajevo Haggedah. I immediately read Ms Brooks' other novels; the Pulitzer prize-winning March, which picks up the thread of the absent father from Louisa May Alcott's Penguin Classics Little Women, and Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, the story of a housemaid-turned-healer when the London plague is transported by a bolt of cloth to her mountain village. I would highly recommend all three of these novels.

Born and raised in Australia, Geraldine Brooks now lives on Martha's Vineyard with her family, where her most recent work, Caleb's Crossing is set.

A Brief Synopsis of Caleb's Crossing

Bethia Mayfield is a precocious and curious young woman growing up within a Puritan colony on Martha's Vineyard in the 1660s. At twelve she meets Caleb, her intellectual equal and son of a native chieftain. They form a secret friendship that eventually draws each into the unfamiliar world of the other. Bethia's father is a Calvinist minister respected by his peers and the native Wampanoag of the island. His mission to convert the 'salvages' results in Caleb's conversion and cultural crossing. As a consequence of unforeseen and calamitous events, Bethia risks all she holds dear to help Caleb in his quest for knowledge.

Although narrated by the fictional Bethia, the novel was inspired by the true life figure of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a member of the Wôpanâak tribe of Noepe (Martha's Vineyard). Born circa 1646, Caleb was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. In the novel's Afterword, Ms Brooks explains that Bethia's distinctive voice and vocabulary are meant to capture the class, upbringing and beliefs of her times. As a result, expressions which are rightly deemed offensive today are applied to Native Americans. Although I appreciate Ms Brooks' reasoning and explanation, none was necessary as her respect for the people and place she writes of is clearly evident to those with eyes to see.

Through her insightful renderings of Bethia, Caleb and the other three-dimensional characters that inhabit the story, Ms Brooks, as she has done in her previous three novels, brilliantly lays bare a time long past for her readers.

My Final Word

In truth, I planned to purchase Caleb's Crossing when it was first released in 2011. I cannot tell you why I chose to wait. I knew it would be a stellar read, so methinks I held off for a time when such a book was needed in my life. Something akin to saving the red Smarties for last. Much like the candy-coated chocolate sweets, this book melted in my mouth.