Caleb's Crossing

When Caleb’s Crossing came out I couldn’t wait to read it. Not only was it written by one of my favorite authors, it was inspired by a true story and set in the same place and time period as the novel I was working on. Brooks’ depiction of the love between a Puritan minister’s daughter and the son of a Wampanoag leader is fraught with tension as two very different cultures collide. The novel brings to life the forces driving the conflict through the characters of Bethia and Caleb as they struggle to navigate a perilous time and the looming… show more.

This gripping, beautifully written novel, published in 2011 and set in 1665, tells the story of the friendship and love affair between Caleb, a young Wampanoag from Martha’s Vineyard who became the first Native American to graduate Harvard, and Bethia Mayfield, a young woman who yearns for an education forbidden to her by the island’s small community of Puritan settlers. The novel makes excellent use of the limited primary sources available to an author attempting to recreate 17th century New England, offering a compelling vision of early colonial Martha’s Vineyard and the great clash of two diametrically opposed worldviews that… show more.

Caleb’s Crossing is a stunning piece of research and recreation into the lives of Puritans and Native Americans in and around Martha’s Vineyard in the 17th Century. Brooks, a master of the art, weaves together a detective story and a love story about how a young English woman and the son of a chieftain strive to overcome the failure of the Puritans to convert the Wampanoag tribe to Calvinism. Her investigation into this little-known period is a triumph of sleuthing.