April 2012
Brooks, Geraldine, Caleb’s Crossing (March 2012)
Brooks, a resident of Martha’s Vineyard, has set this novel in the early 17th century on the Vineyard, and takes the plot from an actual early Native American, Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, the first Native American to graduate from the newly-established Harvard College (1665). Little is known about Caleb, and there is only one extant document, written in Latin in his own hand, from which she creates her tale. Her main character, however, is Bethia Mayfield, daughter of a forward-thinking preacher whose mission is to educate the Native Americans in of the Wampanoag tribe on the island and particularly to teach them of Christ. Bethia befriends Caleb when they are both children. The friendship continues when Bethia, although far below her status and intelligence, is indentured as a servant to one of the teachers at Harvard where Caleb also is being educated as a student. Brooks has done a great deal of research about the early days of white settlement on the Vineyard, and also the patterns of speech and the moirés of the day, which is the part I found most interesting about the novel. The romantic aspects of the novel nudges toward the cliché, but worth the read if for nothing else but the elements of the early Puritan settlement and the early days of Harvard
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