Author |
Brooks, Geraldine author. |
Title |
Caleb's crossing : a novel / Geraldine Brooks. |
Published |
London : Fourth Estate, 2011., |
London : Fourth Estate, 2011. |
©2011. |
Description |
369 pages : facsimiles, map ; 24 cm. |
General Note |
Includes bibliographical references. Leisure reading title. |
Available in |
Also available in an electronic version via the Internet at the publisher's home page. |
Summary |
In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. From the few facts that survive of his extraordinary life, Geraldine Brooks creates a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure. The narrator of Caleb's Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island's glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe's shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb's crossing of culture. |
Contents |
In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American graduate of Harvard College. From the few facts that survive of this extraordinary life, Brooks creates a luminous tale of passion and belief, magic and adventure. When Bethia Mayfield, a spirited twelve-year-old living in the rigid confines of an English Puritan settlement -- and the daughter of a Calvanist minister -- meets Caleb, the young son of a Sampanoag chieftain, the two forge a secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. As Bethia's father feels called to convert the Wampanoag to his own strict faith, he awakens the wrath of the medicine men. Caleb becomes a prize in a contest between the old ways and new, eventually taking his place at Harvard, studying Latin and Greek alongside the sons of the colonial elite. Bethia becomes entangled in Caleb's struggle to navigate the intellectual and cultural shoals that divide their two cultures. Once again, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist brings to vivid life a shard of little-known history, and explores the intimate spaces of the human heart. -book cover. |
Subjects |
Cheeshahteaumuck, Caleb, -- approximately 1646-1666 -- Fiction |
Wampanoag Indians -- Massachusetts -- Martha's Vineyard -- Fiction |
Indian college graduates -- Fiction |
Indian scholars -- United States -- Fiction |
Interpersonal relations -- Fiction |
Genre |
Biographical fiction |
Historical fiction |