Caleb's Crossing

Name: Caleb's Crossing
Brand: Penguin Random House
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.67 (6 reviews)
Author: Geraldine Brooks
ISBN: 9781101526217

Author: Geraldine Brooks

Narrator: Jennifer Ehle

Unabridged: 12 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 05/03/2011

Categories: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

A bestselling tale of passion and belief, magic and adventure from the author of The Secret Chord and of March, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

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 six novels, including Horse, People of the Book, Year of Wonders, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning March. She has also written acclaimed works of nonfiction, including Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have sold millions of copies around the world. Born and raised in Australia, Brooks now divides her time between Sydney and Martha’s Vineyard.

Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Sherilyn on 2011-06-20 19:55:48

I enjoy all of Geraldine Brooks books but enjoyed Caleb's Crossing so much because of my ties to Martha's Vineyard. While listening to the book I read of a second student from the Wompanoag Tribe of Gay Head was receiving her degree from Harvard. One in 1665 and now one in 2011. The reader was so excellent and when the island was described I could see and feel it the way it was the first time I saw it from the ferry when there were fewer houses. I could feel Caleb's need to go back to the island at some point. An excellent book!!

Goodreads review by Lisa of Troy on September 04, 2024

Let me start by asking for some advice. Because this book stinks. Literally. I was thrilled to land a used copy of Caleb’s Crossing in a first printing, but an unpleasant surprise was in store. Every time I open this book, the pages smell like smoke. This book reeks so bad that when I went on a trip a......more

Goodreads review by Jill on March 27, 2015

What becomes of those who independently and courageously navigate the intellectual and cultural shoals that divide cultures? Is it truly possible to make those crossings without relinquishing one’s very identity? Geraldine Brooks poignantly explores these questions in her latest novel, Caleb’s Crossi......more

Goodreads review by PattyMacDotComma on January 31, 2020

3.5★ “. . . they were clad in Adam’s livery, save that their fig leaf was a scrap of hide slung from a tie at their waists. . . . But it was his light temper and his easy laugh that drew me close to him, over time, until I forgot he was a half-naked, sassafras-scented heathen anointed with raccoon gre......more

Goodreads review by Julie on July 15, 2011

I have read nearly all of Geraldine Brooks' books (fiction and non), and have really enjoyed all that I have read. Caleb's Crossing just didn't do it for me. I thought it started slow, but then once it got going, I was very much into it--enjoying the strong female character who is smart and ahead of......more

Quotes

Praise for Caleb's Crossing

“Caleb’s Crossing could not be more enlightening and involving. Beautifully written from beginning to end, it reconfirms Geraldine Brooks’s reputation as one of our most supple and involving novelists.” —Jane Smiley, The New York Times Book Review

“Brooks filters the early colonial era through the eyes of a minister’s daughter growing up on the island known today as Martha’s Vineyard…[Bethia’s] voice – rendered by Brooks with exacting attention to the language and rhythm of the seventeenth century – is captivatingly true to her time.” —The New Yorker

“A dazzling act of the imagination. . .Brooks takes the few known facts about the real Caleb, and builds them into a beautifully realized and thoroughly readable tale…this is intimate historical fiction, observing even the most acute sufferings and smallest heroic gestures in the context of major events.” —Matthew Gilbert, The Boston Globe

“In Bethia, Geraldine Brooks has created a multidimensional, inspiring yet unpredictable character…Bethia’s forbearance, her quiet insistence, the way she creates her life using the best of whatever is handed to her, puts the struggles of American women today in perspective.” —Susan Salter Reynolds, The Los Angeles Times

“Original and compelling. . .[Brooks’ characters] struggle every waking moment with spiritual questions that are as real and unending as the punishing New England winters.”—Paul Chaat Smith, The Washington Post