Customer Reviews

Caleb's Crossing: A Novel

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What becomes of those who independently and courageously navigate the intellectual and cultural shoals that divide cultures? Is it truly possible to make those crossings without relinquishing one's very identity?

Geraldine Brooks poignantly explores these questions in her latest novel, Caleb's Crossing. The story is based on sketchy knowledge of the life of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk - the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College -- and a member of the Wampanoag tribe in what is now Martha's Vineyard.

This is truly a work of imagination since the sources on Caleb's brief, tragic, and remarkable life are scant. The voice belongs to the fictional Bethia Mayfield, a minister's quick-minded daughter who gently (and sometimes, not so gently) defies the rigid expectations of a Calvinistic society that demand silence and obedience from its womenfolk.

As outsiders, both Bethia and Caleb - who meet on the cusp of adolescence - quickly bond and form a lifelong friendship. On the sly, Bethia absorbs the language and the cultures of the Wopanaak tribe while out in the field; at home, she secretly absorbs lessons that are meant for her brother Makepeace.

Eventually, both serendipitously find themselves at Cambridge. Caleb's Harvard education - conducted in the classical languages of Latin, Greek and Hebrew - is funded by rich English patrons as an experiment as to whether "salvages" can be indoctrinated into Christian culture alongside the dismissive colonial elite. Bethia goes along with Caleb and Makepeace as indentured help, striving to remain in close proximity to scholars and avoid her fate as yet another small settlement farm wife.

There are plenty of twists and turns, trauma and heartbreak, celebrations and sadness along the way; after all, Geraldine Brooks already has a reputation as an absorbing story teller who is able to imaginatively use history to fictional ends. And it would be unfair to even allude to some of these page-turning plot developments.

The themes, though, are fair game. This novel particularly shines when it touches upon matters of faith, which rely heavily upon John Cotton, Jr.'s account of his conversations with native islanders in the 1660s missionary journals (according to the author in her epilogue). The pantheistic view of the medicine men is placed in a high-stakes battle against strict and judgmental Calvinism time and again. Bethia muses, "It galls me, when I catch a stray remark from the master, or between the older English pupils, to the effect that the Indians are uncommonly fortunate to be here. I have come to think it is a fault in us, to credit what we give in such a case, and never to consider what must be given up in order to receive it."

Ms. Brooks drums that point home - sometimes a bit too firmly, not relying enough on the reader to form his or her own conclusions. Still, there is intense observation in the "civilizing" of Caleb's crossing to the world inhabited uneasily by Bethia. She reflects, "In that shimmering, golden light I saw the wild boy I had met here four summers past, no longer wild, nor boy. The hair was cut short and plain, the fringed deer hide leggings replaced with sensible black serge. The wampum ornaments were gone, the bare mahogany arms sheathed now in billowing linen. Yet neither was the youth who stood before me some replica of a young Englishman..." The story of Caleb and Bethia is part of an age-old battle of repressive and misguided individuals who callously use religion to assert dominancy, superiority, and control over others.

As a result, destiny and preordination wrestle as the boundaries of both cultures are movingly explored in a voice that may be described as "period language." From the natural beauty of an early Martha's Vineyard to the drafty dormitories of Harvard College, this fictional work includes a wallop of historical fact. Those who have thrilled to other Geraldine Brooks' absorbingly told novels - March, Year of Wonders, People of the Book--will find yet one more reason to rejoice.

The best historical fiction takes historical fact and pulls us in by creating interest in characters of the time period. Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks is one of the most versatile historical fiction writers of today. Her talent lays in takes a slice of history and creating a world we long to enter. Imaginatively conceived and exquisitely written with compelling characters, Caleb's Crossing will command your attention and demand your respect.

1660. Great Harbor (now Martha's Vineyard), Massachusetts. Bethia Mayfield anticipates the arrival of Caleb, a member of the Wampanoag tribe, to her home for tutoring with her minister father. Unperceived by her family, she and Caleb, who share a love of nature, have learned each other's languages and formed a friendship over the past few years. Her brother and Caleb, the first Native American to do so, enter Cambridge to prepare for studies at Harvard. Bethia feels at a loss when she leaves Martha's Vineyard to become a servant in the headmaster's home. Her love of learning prods her secret vigilance in listening to all the lessons.

Integral elements of the remarkable Caleb's Crossing are joy in learning, unexpected death, heartbreaking starvation, and the ever-present bond between Caleb and Bethia despite all hardship and prejudice against their bond. Knowledge equals power in this unique book. Caleb says, "And since it seems that knowledge is no respecter of boundaries, I will take it wheresoever I can...if necessary, I will go into the dark to get it." Intrigued?

You will find yourself reading in a leisurely fashion to fully savor the evocative prose. "And then I woke, on my cold pallet in this stranger's kitchen, with ice winds from the cracked window fingering my flesh and a snowflake melting slowly on the fireless hearth."

The characters are absorbing. The soulful narrative voice of Bethia has an ethereal quality. She is haunted by guilt, taking upon herself blame for a smallpox outbreak, a death during the delivery of a baby--all because of her secret relationship with Caleb. Caleb yearns to be a Pawaaw, or healer of his people. For him, knowledge respects no boundaries. He glows with appreciation of life, zest for learning, curiosity and love of nature.

The release of Caleb's Crossing coincides with an important Harvard University event. This May a degree will be awarded to Tiffany Smalley, the first Martha's Vineyard member of the Wampanoag tribe since Caleb to graduate. An official portrait of Caleb will be painted in commemoration.

To what does Caleb cross? Read Caleb's Crossing to find out. In the book, Ms. Brooks highlights this question: What are the effects of attempting to Christianize an already spiritual, established civilization? Her own opinion is not expressed. Instead, she tells Caleb's story with forthrightness and clarity, allowing the reader to draw his own conclusions.

I thank Viking for providing a copy. The opinions expressed unbiased and solely that of the reviewer.

Reviewed by Holly Weiss, author of Crestmont

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher.

I have always felt that Geraldine Brooks is a truly gifted writer but I always have mixed feelings about her books. I really liked YEAR OF WONDERS. I hated MARCH. I loved loved loved PEOPLE OF THE BOOK. So, I approached CALEB'S CROSSING with a little trepidation.

Brooks has a real gift in making history come alive in her fiction. In CALEB'S CROSSING, Brooks fictionalizes the life of first Native American to graduate from Harvard. There is very little in the historical record on Caleb but Brooks manages to flesh out a compelling tale told from the perspective of a young woman named Bethia Mayfield who befriends Caleb and becomes like a sister to him. Using Bethia's point of view was genius as it allowed Brooks to delve into the roles of women in the late 1600's. We see not only Caleb's story but that of a young woman who desires nothing more than to be educated in her own right. Bethia observes as her minister father attempts to convert the Wampanoag while he is ignorant of his daughter's friendship with Caleb and fluency in the native tongue. Caleb becomes a pet project of Bethia's father as the minister tutors him in preparation for entry into Harvard. A year later, Bethia finds herself in Cambridge as an indentured servant where she witnesses the pressures Caleb feels in trying to straddle the gap between his two worlds.

CALEB'S CROSSING is a wonderful book. The juxtaposition between Bethia's experiences and Caleb's makes for a truly compelling story. I'm not sure the story would have been as effective without Bethia's voice. I was completely absorbed by the tale. I think Brooks did an excellent job of demonstrating the pressures put on individuals who were attempting to bridge cultural and societal gaps.

BOTTOM LINE: Recommended. A wonderful and moving tale of two people trying to find their place in the world and the toll these actions took on them.

Brooks is thorough and unsparing in this tale of courage in the face of bigotry, the sacrifices made by Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, the first Native American to graduate Harvard College in 1665. To be an educated man of such a heritage is unheard of at the time, but Caleb captures the affection and respect of narrator Bethia Mayfield and her father, a minister devoted to spreading the word of God to the native tribes in 1660 Great Harbor, a small settlement on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. A secret friendship blooms between the young Bethia and Caleb, who teaches his new friend the Wampanoag language, customs and native plant lore. Cherishing a relationship that exists outside her family's circle, Bethia is thirsty for knowledge and education, restricted by virtue of her birth and profoundly limited in life choices. A temporary respite from societal restrictions and the ebullience of natural curiosity bind Caleb and Bethia together, as well as mutual trust, their histories linked as events place each in the other's orbit at Harvard, their individual futures fraught with hardship and loss.

A stickler for historical detail, Brooks roots her characters' experiences in fact, each chained by expectations to familial demands. Bethia's older brother, Makepeace, of smaller intellect than his sibling, chafes under her insatiable need to examine and understand, admonishing his sister at every opportunity; the Reverend Mayfair finds an audience in the natives, but runs afoul of Caleb's shaman uncle, who is violently opposed to the teachings and singular God of Christianity; and Caleb, preparing for Harvard with the minister and another Indian student, pays the price of his difference and his brilliance, relinquishing the open landscape of his youth for the confined and moldy corridors of academia in Cambridge. Though the novel stresses personal success and ground-breaking accomplishment, a paean to the purity and nobility of the mind, the historical reality is littered with the petty cruelties of racism and a class system that encourages fellow students to treat Caleb with scorn.

While Bethia turns to her God for comfort and forgiveness on a daily basis- sometimes more frequently as need dictates, she cannot help but admire Caleb's beliefs, though guilt-ridden by such aberrant attraction. The God of the colonists is pervasive, unyielding, the arbiter of all thoughts and deeds, those who fall outside the pale judged harshly. Yes, Caleb achieves his laudable goal, but at great personal cost, even Bethia's days made miserable by the demands of changed fortune and meager opportunity. This new country has broken from England, but is rigid in its mores, accommodation to the norm the only way to excel. Their lives entwined through friendship and a passion for knowledge, Bethia and Caleb claim their rightful places in history, but the journey is grueling, somber and perpetually joyless, subsumed by the demands of a society that withholds as easily as it bestows favor. Sadly, Caleb's achievement confers notoriety at the cost of all he holds dear. Luan Gaines/2011

Be warned all ye of the fundamental Christian theology leanings, your beliefs will be much challenged, contrasted with the Native American beliefs during the early years of settlement in 17th century Massachusetts when this country's long-standing Puritanical bible-thumping would establish itself.
Geraldine Brooks has chosen a teenage young woman, Bethia Mayfiield, as the first-person narrator, who would not normally have been equipped for such a task as the writer of brilliant prose. Many times I have found myself irritated at first-person narratives because I do not believe the narrator would have possessed the language required. But in this book, I find Bethia's writer's voice--a rather sophisticated syntax with rich vocabulary--convincing because the author has provided the reader with the information about her thirst for language and the rather unique and often devious ways in which she gained that knowledge.
She narrates a story that begins in 1660 in Great Harbor on Martha' Vineyard where white settlers--in this case a family headed by Bethia's minister father--share the island with the Wampanoag natives who inhabited that part of New England. It took me a few pages to warm up to the syntax which the author obviously mastered. Unfamiliar vocabulary is easily understood through context. And within a few pages, I found myself speeding up to my usual rather rapid silent reading pace.
The minister has set out to convert the pagan natives to Christianity while his daughter has set out to learn more about these people. And her prose shows how conflicted she becomes--she is filled with Calvinistic guilt--because the natives seem to have a much less hostile attitude toward land and the creatures on it than the white zealots.
In her wanderings she meets a young Wampanoag man, her age, whom she nicknames Caleb and who, by the end of the first section of the novel, has come to live with them so that he might learn the white man's ways--especially the language and the religion. In other words, the same story all of us have known about.
But this is not a trite work, not at all. In fact I suspect it will challenge many readers to rethink some of their own philosophies, especially about the way in which we treat each other and our planet.
I will not reveal the tragedies that these people endure. There are plenty.
The second part of the novel--and it is more than half of it--is set in Cambridge where Bethia has been sent to keep house and cook for a small group of young men including her older (and only living) brother, Caleb and another native young man who study at Harvard College, not at all like the Cambridge and Harvard we know today. She finds time to further enhance her own learning and also to write, often beginning a new chapter with an apology for something she wrote in the last because of the guilt she feels as she struggles with her attempts to play the role of a woman in those times which is at odds with what she wants for herself.
I highly recommend this wonderful novel.

Historical fiction can provide great reading along with insight: what was life like in the past, and in what ways does the past resonate with our common human experience. In her novel, Caleb's Crossing, Geraldine Brooks takes a historical event and period, the matriculation of the first Native American at Harvard in the late 17th century, and imagines the tension and conflict in the characters who deal with the crossing from one culture to another. Brooks brings out the time period with vivid detail, and uses a first person narrator, Bethia Mayfield, to provide the link between the readers and the protagonist, Caleb. The narration is Bethia's lament, and provides an engaging and entertaining reading experience, especially for those who like that period of American history, or who empathize with the challenges of cultural assimilation.

Rating: Three-star (Recommended)

I won't bother to summarize the book as many have already done that very well before. Geraldine Brooks' writing is flawless and it is a great read but I felt greatly disappointed that we lost sight of Caleb about two thirds of the way through. Yes, he is there but always on the sidelines and only in the briefest of encounters. I would have liked the author to have delved more deeply into Caleb's life and struggle as he made that difficult passage from his island life to his life on the mainland as a student in the Englishman's world. We have Bethia's perceptions from a distance and very brief snatches of conversation. I did not feel that it was enough. His voice got completely lost as we focused on Bethia's transition from indentured servant and girl to freed woman making her own life choices. Brooks' has such a remarkable imagination, I would have appreciated getting more inside of Caleb's head. How did he deal with his angst or maintain his sense of self in a hostile world that understood him as 'salvage'? For example, the book reprints the Latin text in which the real Caleb 'discusses the myth of Orpheus as it relates to his own experience of crossing between two very different cultures." I assumed incorrectly that this remarkable text would have somehow been incorporated into the story. At least, I was hoping for a translation somewhere of this very special Latin text written in Caleb's hand. How did Caleb feel about that crossing? He, unfortunately, got left behind as Bethia's story took prominence.

Also, there was a clear tension/attraction initially between the two youths on the island. Are we to assume that Bethia simply never let any type of attraction with a 'salvage' cross her mind (even though her brother insinuates this possibility)? She seemed open enough to many different ideas why not the irrational nature of passion as well? What if she had felt some attraction to Caleb - she certainly felt attraction and great curiosity towards other aspects of native life (ie, the hellebore concoction that produced visions)? I didn't understand why this was left unsaid too. Caleb's inner world in this aspect is also missing. What kind of desire might he have felt? Was he attracted to Bethia and her many qualities that helped him make that crossing? Did he save himself in some kind of purist love from a distance towards her? He comes across in the end to me as the stereotypical 'noble Indian' wise, restrained and asexual in his search for knowledge in the white man's world.

I do love Geraldine Brooks' writing dearly and felt captivated by much of the novel. I believe, though, that she lost sight of Caleb somewhere along the way in her development of the Bethia character. Consequently, I don't think that the title of the story is apt. I wish she had written Caleb's Crossing from his point of view and not from Bethia's. Another way to do it would have been to give them each a first person voice and interweave their texts. The way it has been done I end the novel still asking myself - who was Caleb and what was the crossing like for him?

Geraldine Brooks tends to base her novels on real events, transforming them with her imagination. Her starting point here is Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a young Wampanoag Indian from Martha's Vineyard, who in 1665 was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard, founded a quarter-century earlier. Comparatively little is known about him, other than a few dates and a letter in his own hand, written in Latin, so Brooks was free to fill out his story in any way she wished. So while this may not be THE Caleb, he is certainly HER Caleb, first seen as a bright, agile, and independent boy, the son of the sonquem (chief) of his tribe, later growing into an elegant, enigmatic, and self-contained young scholar, among the most distinguished in his graduating class.

This, then, is his Crossing, from one culture to a totally different one, the master of both. The word has other meanings too. It refers to the physical crossing from Martha's Vineyard, not then the easy ferry ride to Woods Hole but a day-long journey to Boston that was not without its dangers. In a world where death is commonplace and few children live to adulthood, it may also refer to the final crossing, and the faith or fears about what may await on the other side. And perhaps it also refers to the Christianization of the native people that was the necessary first step to any advancement in the colonial world. Like Marilynne Robinson (author of GILEAD), Brooks has always had a strong religious element in her novels. While she does not quite have Robinson's ability to convey religion as a radiant inner light, this is much more than an historical add-on; Brooks' characters live within a world shaped by belief, and measure their actions by those beliefs. Yes, beliefs plural, because Brooks is also an unusually ecumenical writer. The dominant creed here is Christianity; in PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, it was Judaism, and the Transcendentalism of Emerson and Thoreau in MARCH. And even in this Puritan environment, beliefs are nuanced: the island community was set up in reaction to the stricter laws of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the tension between liberalism and restriction runs through the book. As she had done in her first novel, YEAR OF WONDERS, Brooks stretches to include people whose practices (for example as herbalists or midwives) place them on the fringes of acceptable belief. In CALEB'S CROSSING, she goes further, to contrast Christianity with the animism of the Native Americans; one of the book's strengths is that she remains open to both belief systems, even in an historical context where Christianity triumphs.

Of course, Brooks runs the danger that her story will seem altogether too politically correct, becoming yet another variation on the old theme of the Noble Savage, counteracting historical guilt with a strong dose of cultural relativism. Her solution, I think, is brilliant. She tells the story through the mouth of young woman, Bethia* Mayfield, the daughter of the Christian missionary on the island. Although the Mayfields are based on a real family, the Mayhews, Bethia is an entirely invented character, spunky and delightful, brilliant and headstrong, a perfect foil for Caleb whom she meets on one of her solitary rides around the island when both are about ten. Soon the two become firm friends. It is she who gives Caleb his English name; he in turn calls her "Storm Eyes." Bethia is also precociously intelligent. Eavesdropping while her father tutors her brother Makepeace for the ministry, she develops a good knowledge of Latin, some Greek, and even a little Hebrew. But these are all forbidden pursuits. Puritan custom held that once a girl had learned to read and write sufficiently to handle household accounts her education should cease, lest she shame her future husband by her superior knowledge. This seems so patently unjust that we are with Bethia all the way in her thirst for knowledge. Recruited so willingly as we are to the feminist cause, we take the parallel theme of racial equality in our stride. Although some other reviewers have felt otherwise, I for one never felt pandered to or manipulated.

Brooks' other great achievement is the discovery of Bethia's voice. Although it can be very direct and simple, it has a distinct 17th-century cadence: "They say the Lord's Day is a day of rest, but those who preach this are generally not women. Even on the Sabbath, a fire must be laid, water drawn, victuals prepared, infants washed and dressed in meeting clothes. Those in purse to have a cow must see to it, for no one has preached to the cow that she must not let down the milk that stiffens her udders." It it more than a scattering of unusual words: victuals, in purse, sennight, bever. It can rise to rich poetry, as when Bethia describes her delight in the Greek pastoral poet Hesiod: "It is his night sky I see now, through the seasons: Arcturus rising brilliant from the ocean stream at dusk, Pleiades like a swarm of fireflies, Sirius parching the hayfields on hot late-summer nights, and Orion striding across the winter sky." Taken together, this all creates a remarkably consistent envelope for the story, taking us not only into an historical mindset but also into the thoughts of a remarkable young woman. Her love of words becomes our love of words, and our delight in reading becomes a wish to see her succeed.

The novel is not flawless. Brooks has always been better at developing her stories than ending them, and her epilogue, though ultimately very moving, involves a temporary drop in tension. Earlier, when Bethia is faced with a romantic dilemma, I found myself understanding her choice without feeling it. Caleb himself becomes less central as a character as the book proceeds and he gets swallowed up by the cloistered world of Harvard. But Bethia only grows in strength and interest, combining a restless search of knowledge with a deepening understanding of her own place in the world; she is undoubtedly Brooks' finest female creation, and that world is a remarkably complete one. All in all, this is among the best of Geraldine Brooks' novels that have read, far better than PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, and right up there with MARCH, which remains one of my favorite novels of the past quarter-century.

*See the first comment.

Absolutely stunning book. I read from page 63 to the end in one sitting because I just could not put it down. Utterly lovely and heartbreaking.

Bethia, the narrator, is a strong female voice and beautifully written. The other characters are vividly drawn and just as affecting. The way Brooks has written the book - from three points in Bethia's life, but looking back on what has happened to bring her to that point - is very skilfully done and provides an arc to the narrative that gives the reader a sense of completeness. That she has used the small amount she uncovered about this real man's life oh so long ago to write this book shows her remarkable imagination and her talent for creating lives and whole histories from small kernels of truth.

Caleb and Bethia's lives intersect and cross over one another in both magical and tragic ways, but it is representative of the two very different worlds they come from and what so often happened upon these worlds' meeting. There is a true beauty to their friendship and story that even now, as I am writing this, brings me to tears.

Both characters are struggling to find their place in their ever-changing world. Bethia is trying to balance her identity as a Christian woman with that of a seeker of knowledge who craves and rejoices in learning; her conversations on this topic with others and her own inner thoughts and desires provide us with very interesting insight into how women's education and a woman's place were viewed at the time. Caleb is trying to stay true to the spirits and the Wampanoag way of life, while also finding a place for himself and his people so that they may survive these newcomers and the unstoppable change they bring. The dialogue between him and Bethia regarding their separate religions and traditions, as well as Bethia's own reflections, gives rise to very thought-provoking issues regarding faith, religion, spirituality, and culture. Is it possible to wed two different ways of thinking, two different belief systems? Does an attempt to do so automatically compromise one or both? How do we stay true to ourselves and our history, while also adapting in order to survive?

I took Caleb's Crossing out from the library, but will want to buy my own copy. It's an emotionally engaging and deeply moving work that I know I will want to reread. Raw as it left me feeling, I know this story will stay with me for many, many days, causing me to question and wonder.

Geraldine Brooks, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, author of some of my favorite books (March, Year of Wonders, People of the Book), took a small sliver of history and expanded the history into a novel.

The novel is "Caleb's Crossing," set in the 1630's onward. It is narrated by Bethia Mayfield, a young Puritan girl with an unusually brilliant mind. Bethia listens in as her father teaches her block-headed older brother, Makepeace. She learns Latin, Greek, and all the other requirements the university will require of him. Makespeace doesn't.

She becomes friends with Caleb Cheeshahteamuck, a Native American. Caleb loves his people, and yet his inquiring mind leads him to become a student readying for the university alongside Makepeace. Caleb teaches Bethia Native American spirituality, the tribe's reverence for the land and the animals of the earth. She and Caleb throw arguments about the meaning of God between themselves, talk that could result in severe punishment if found out.

Bethia's family endures a series of four tragedies that forever change the course of her life. Caleb goes on to achieve his diploma from Harvard.

While there is no doubt of Ms. Brooks' fine attention to detail in creating character and setting, the very people and times she illustrates in this novel cast a pall of sermonizing and sin across every page. It is an interesting story buried under philosophical arguments and long speeches about spiritual matters. Her descriptions of Bethia's home island and the waste laid to Cambridge by Whites even at this early stage of development underscore the scourges that accompanied "enlightenment" as Europeans instructed and changed the Native people of North America.