Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created 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 cultures.
Like Brooks's beloved narrator Anna in Year of Wonders, Bethia proves an emotionally irresistible guide to the wilds of Martha's Vineyard and the intimate spaces of the human heart. Evocative and utterly absorbing, Caleb's Crossing further establishes Brooks's place as one of our most acclaimed novelists.
Geraldine Brooks is the author of four books, including March, which won the Pulitzer Prize, and Caleb's Crossing, People of the Book, and Year of Wonders, which were all international blockbusters. She has also written the nonfiction titles Nine Pieces of Desire and Foreign Letters, both of which have received critical praise. Caleb's Crossing, her most recent novel, was a finalist for the Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction and won the New England Book Award for Fiction and the Christianity Today Book Award. She was born and reared in Australia and now lives with her husband, novelist Tony Horwitz, on Martha's Vineyard. This is her debut novel.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780670021048 |
| ISBN 10 | 0670021040 |
| Title | Caleb's Crossing |
| Author | Geraldine Brooks |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Penguin Putnam Inc |
| Year published | 2011-05-03 |
| Number of pages | 320 |
| Prizes | Winner of New England Book Award (Fiction) 2011, Winner of Christianity Today Book Award (Fiction) 2012, Commended for Langum Prize for Historical Literature (Historical Fiction) 2011, Commended for Chautauqua Prize 2012 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |