'Caleb's Crossing' means well, misses the mark

By Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY

Before purchasing this new historical novel by the esteemed writer Geraldine Brooks, pause to read the first chapter. Caleb's Crossing has received strong advance reviews, and Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel March. Her intentions are good, her language authentic to 17th-century Massachusetts, her research detailed and plentiful.

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  Caleb's Crossing imagines the life of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, an Indian who graduated from Harvard in 1665.

Caleb's Crossing imagines the life of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, an Indian who graduated from Harvard in 1665.

The novel was "inspired" by Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, who in 1665 became the first Native American Harvard graduate.

Unfortunately, while Caleb's Crossing is beautifully written, it reads like a puritanical mash-up of Avatar meets Dances With Wolves.

Instead of immersing the reader in the complexity of the past, it features predictable themes like gender inequality (bad), religious intolerance (bad), racism (bad), Native American wisdom (good) and evil white men (guess).

The real focus of the book is narrator Bethia Mayfield, yet another brave, kind, brilliant heroine rebelling against a patriarchal society and religion. Bethia resists domestic imprisonment because she craves learning like a junkie craves heroin.

Bethia, a fictional character, lives on what is now Martha's Vineyard, where her father is a minister trying to convert the Native Americans. The bane of her existence: her slow-witted, evil, jealous older brother Makepeace.

Bethia and the handsome, sensitive, brilliant chieftain's son Caleb meet in early adolescence and become secret friends. He reveals the wonders of nature to her and she gives him books: eventually her father tutors him. While Caleb calls Bethia "Storm Eyes," don't get your hopes up, romance fans.

Title: Caleb's Crossing

Author:By Geraldine Brooks

Publisher/price: Viking, 306 pp., $26.95

Bethia ends up as an indentured servant in Cambridge before marriage, while Caleb graduates from Harvard College. The plot centers on the discrimination and trouble these gifted and talented non-conformists face.

Brooks opens the novel by noting she wrote it "in the hope of honoring the struggle, sacrifice and achievement of this remarkable young scholar." A worthwhile goal in non-fiction, but fatal to compelling fiction.

Caleb's Crossing is so earnestly determined to improve and instruct the reader, you'd think John Calvin had a hand in writing it.

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Daily News Editorial: Insurance commissioner needs more power over medical insurance rates

Californians are required by law to buy auto insurance. You can't register your car without it; if you get pulled over, proof of insurance is one of the first things an officer asks for. If you don't have it, you get a ticket.

Because Californians are compelled to have the minimum auto coverage, insurance companies would have us over a premium barrel without the protections of Proposition 103, which gives the state some authority in keeping rates reasonable.

Some may think their auto insurance rates are pretty astronomical, as it is. But it could be worse - much worse. Proposition 103, passed by voters in 1988, regulates how much profit insurance companies can make on a guaranteed market. In fact, the Proposition 103 protections apply to most every policy you might own - home, boat, business liability, etc. - with one major exception: health care insurance.

A bill by Los Angeles Assemblyman Mike Feuer working its way through legislative committees at the moment, aims to change that. AB 52 would extend Proposition 103 protections to health insurance, and give the insurance commissioner the ability to nix rates that are deemed excessive.

As it is, the state's elected insurance commissioner has very little power other than the bully pulpit when insurance companies raise health care premiums by

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Customers can choose to simply end their policies. But when health insurance becomes compulsory in 2014 under the Affordable Care Act, the insurance companies are going to be handed millions of new customers - and millions more in potential profits. There must be some protection that these new customers aren't going to be gouged.

Health insurance companies correctly argue that the rising cost of health care drives up premiums. Until California and the country as a whole figure out a way to slow the cost of providing medical services, health insurance will get more expensive.

Yet, the public is justifiably skeptical of insurers' claims that these increases are simply recouping expenses, especially when insurance companies continue to rack up healthy profits and state authorities call such increases "unreasonable."

A healthy profit is the American way, but excessive profits on the backs of people already digging deeper for every basic need is unseemly. California's insurance companies have figured out how to make a profit on auto and home and all the other insurance products currently regulated by the state under Proposition 103. Why should health insurance be any different?

A Los Angeles Daily News editorial. To read more editorials from the Daily News, go to www.dailynews.com/opinions.

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