Caleb's Crossing
The new novel from Pulitzer Prize-winner Geraldine
Brooks, author of the Richard and Judy bestseller
'March', 'Year of Wonders' and 'People of the Book'.
Caleb Cheeshateaumauk was the first native American to
graduate from Harvard College back in 1665. 'Caleb's
Crossing' gives voice to his little known story. Caleb,
a Wampanoag from the island of Martha's Vineyard, seven
miles off the coast of Massachusetts, comes of age just
as the first generation of Indians come into contact
with English settlers, who have fled there, desperate to
escape the brutal and doctrinaire Puritanism of the
Massachusetts Bay colony. The story is told through the
eyes of Bethia, daughter of the English minister who
educates Caleb in the Latin and Greek he needs in order
to enter the college. As Caleb makes the crossing into
white culture, Bethia, 14 years old at the novel's
opening, finds herself pulled in the opposite direction.
Trapped by the narrow strictures of her faith and her
gender, she seeks connections with Caleb's world that
will challenge her beliefs and set her at odds with her
community.
