Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks, HarperCollins, $32.99.
Geraldine Brooks has a rare gift for unearthing small, overlooked historical facts which she then shapes and spins into great human stories.
She’s done it three times already (with Year of Wonders, March, and People of the Book) and excels with this, her fourth.
The nugget this time was discovering that Caleb, a chieftain’s son from the Wopanaak tribe of Martha’s Vineyard — where the Australian author now lives — was the first native American to graduate from Harvard. Not in the civil rights era, as one assumes, but in 1665.
This is Brooks’ imagining of the difficulty and scale of that journey. From a proud boy in furs, feathers and wampum… to a Latin-speaking scholar in black robe and ceremonial cap.
The story is told by the determined Bethia Mayfield, daughter of pioneers and Caleb’s secret friend since childhood, who has her own battles to fight on the education and equality front.
The stories mesh into a wonderful, bittersweet novel which made me laugh, think and cry for the cost of Caleb’s crossing.
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