They All Die

I have jumped over the book club selection for April to read May:  Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks.  Believe it or not, a Pulitzer Prize winner.  Not.  Who gets to sit on the awarding committee?  Liberal leaning balance the history types who feel compelled to "honor" an oppressive time in American history?

I strongly disliked this book.  It reminded me a lot of Ahab's Wife, another historical novel about a notable male told from a woman's perspective in an age when women were oppressed downtrodden ignored demeaned discriminated against under-educated yadda yadda yadda.

Essentially the story is Bethia Mayhew's life:
Her twin brother dies
Her mother dies in childbirth
That baby drowns in the back yard
Her father drowns at sea
Her best friend, Caleb, an Indian on Martha's Vineyard, dies of consumption after graduating Harvard
His best first Joel is clubbed to death returning to Boston to give the valedictory speech

Have we pulled enough heart strings to reach the conclusions that:
Harvard was racist
All of Massachusetts colonists were sexist
Women were indentured officially or de facto
Indians were exterminated but also heathen brutalizers

Enough said