Gravity. staff are helpful and friendly. Her 2011 novel Caleb's Crossing is inspired by the life of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a Wampanoag convert to Christianity who was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College, in the seventeenth century. I thought it started slow, but then once it got going, I was very much into it--enjoying the strong female character who is smart and ahead of her time (something I think Brooks has done well in the past). Add Comment. When I think of the research required for her to voice Bethia so authentically, and then render it in a way that makes sense to a modern reader, I am properly impressed. Then there is the even more Puritanical world of the mainland and the city that holds the college founded by Harvard, a city of small tight streets, filth and stench and narrow people. This is another book club pick that I'm being forced to read. Caleb's Crossing just didn't do it for me. CALEB'S CROSSING. Greer-Louis, Inc. provides centralized on-site sales at the Caleb’s Creek Sales Center. I ended Geraldine Brooks novel with regret which I was surprised to find. I also enjoyed the exploration of the tension created for and between the two main characters by different religious experiences. Book Review: Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks Posted in Fiction , Historical Fiction by mmelland Caleb’s Crossing is set in colonial New England, mostly during the 1660s, and tells the story of an English puritan girl, Bethia, whose friendship with Native American Caleb has unusual consequences – Caleb becomes the first Native American to graduate from Harvard. Everybody knows a little something about the pilgrims and somehow the witch hunts came about...and during all that time there was some sort of tension/friendship with the native Americans? Bethia Mayfield is a restless and curious young woman growing up in Martha’s vineyard in the 1660s amid a … Based on somewhat vague historical records, and inspired by the real life of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a member of the Wampanoag tribe in Great Harbor (now Martha's Vineyard) Geraldine Brooks tells the story of "Caleb''s Crossing." In this book Geraldine Brooks gives us two likable but diverse characters and some fascinating information on the early years of Harvard. Bethia is a spectator in her own life. A richly imagined new novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller, People of the Book. Start studying Caleb's Crossing Review. The language construct flavors this novel with authenticity and I appreciated the masterful accomplishment of creating a serious historical novel. Caleb is mostly a peripheral character. Caleb’s Crossing (2011) is a historical fiction novel based on the real life figure of Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard University in 1665. Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2018. The triumph of “Caleb’s Crossing” is that Bethia succeeds as a convincing woman of her time, and also in communicating across centuries of change in … Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. Eden at Caleb's Crossing. Not only did I learn by reading this book, I was also completely hooked by the struggles of the main character Bethia who's burden, like every other woman of that time, is silence. Maybe it is in the way historical research is exemplified through lucid, sometimes lyrical, prose. There is always a higher calling to the stories, a David vs. Goliath struggle that finds you passionately pulling for the underdog and exasperated with the ignorance and intolerance of those in power. 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