About this item
Bethia Mayfield is a restless and curious young woman growing up in Martha's vineyard in the 1660s amid a small band of pioneering English Puritans. At age twelve, she meets Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a secret bond that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's father is a Calvinist minister who seeks to convert the native Wampanoag, and Caleb becomes a prize in the contest between old ways and new, eventually becoming the first Native American graduate of Harvard College. Inspired by a true story and narrated by the irresistible Bethia, Caleb’s Crossing brilliantly captures the triumphs and turmoil of two brave, openhearted spirits who risk everything in a search for knowledge at a time of superstition and ignorance.
About the Author
Geraldine Brooks is the author of the novels The Secret Chord, Caleb's Crossing, People of the Book, March (which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2006) and Year of Wonders, recently optioned by Olivia Coleman. She has also written three works of non-fiction: Nine Parts of Desire, based on her experiences among Muslim women in the mideast, Foreign Correspondence, a memoir about an Australian childhood enriched by penpals around the world and her adult quest to find them, and The Idea of Home:Boyer Lectures 2011. Brooks started out as a reporter in her hometown, Sydney, and went on to cover conflicts as a Wall Street Journal correspondent in Bosnia, Somalia, and the Middle East. She now lives on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts with two sons, a horse named Valentine and a dog named Bear.
