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.