Description

The new novel from Pulitzer Prize-winner Geraldine Brooks, author of the Richard and Judy bestseller ‘March’, Sunday Times bestseller ‘Year of Wonders’ and ‘People of the Book’.

Martha’s Vineyard, 1650s: Bethia Mayfield is a young girl growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor, amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless, bright and curious, but denied the education that her brothers receive, she slips away as often as she can to explore the island’s wild landscapes and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At the age of twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the children form a secret friendship that gradually draws each into the alien world of the other.

Meanwhile, Bethia’s minister father is trying to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe’s shaman against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. And when he takes it upon himself to educate Caleb, it will further divide the communities – within a year the boy is learning Latin and Greek, and leaves the island to study at Harvard. As Caleb makes the crossing into white culture, Bethia finds herself pulled in the opposite direction. Trapped by the narrow strictures of her faith and her gender, she seeks connections with Caleb’s world that will challenge her beliefs and set her at odds with her community…

Publisher Review

`Plunge into the past with Caleb's Crossing... This novel gives eloquent voice to a little-known story' Erica Wagner, The Times, Books of the Year `Caleb's Crossing could not be more enlightening and involving. Beautifully written from beginning to end, it confirms Geraldine Brooks's reputation as one of our most supple and insightful novelists' New York Times `Fascinating ... Brooks has dressed the bare facts in moving and imaginative storytelling' Kate Saunders, The Times `A tantalising portrait of a brief moment when two cultures might have come together in harmony' Paul Dunn, The Times `This sombre, thoughtful historical novel has been imaginatively woven from a scrap of historical fact...drawn with a quiet, impressive intensity' Metro