Pearl unfolds this tale with suspense…His telling is notable both for its uncanny parallels to the apocryphal Swiss Family Robinson story that predated it and because the real-life shipwreck of Captain Frederick Walker, his wife and their sons was more dire than Disney’s idyllic fantasy. Pearl renders clear connections to the fictional story while writing a real-life adventure full of deceit, villainy and murderous plotting…As grounded in the 19th century as it is, Pearl’s take on the story of the castaways of the Wandering Minstrel also feels apt for our present moment—more Lord of the Flies than Swiss Family Robinson.” — Los Angeles Times
“Written with the compelling narrative and literary flair of a work of fiction.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Save Our Souls is a story, not a study. The distinction is vital. You get to know these people and their relationships with each other. You live and die with every near-rescue that isn’t. Most important, you keep turning the page.” — Boston Globe
"A staggering account of a family castaway on a deserted island and confronted by a mysterious man who first appears to be their salvation, before a more difficult truth emerges. Pearl works in the vein of David Grann and consistently produces first-rate nonfiction." — Literary Hub, "Most Anticipated Books of the Year"
“[A] rousing history . . . . Pearl paces the account like a thriller . . . .This real-life Swiss Family Robinson will keep readers up all night.” — Publishers Weekly
“This dramatic story of good and evil pits the power of teamwork and family against ruthless ambition and selfishness. An illuminating chronicle of perseverance and survival on a barren island, Save Our Souls brings history to life.” — Booklist
“Pearl . . . takes readers on a rollicking adventure through the 19th-century Pacific with a page-turning historical true-crime narrative reminiscent of the works of David Grann or Nathaniel Philbrick.” — WBUR.org
“A genuine Swiss Family Robinson adventure, but darker . . . . A realistic castaway account.” — Kirkus Reviews
“You are a castaway on a coral atoll, and you find a Man Friday—only he turns out to be a convicted murderer—oh, what a story! Matthew Pearl tells it, this dark tale of the 1887 wreck of the Wandering Minstrel with flair and aplomb: transfixingly brilliant." — Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of Knowing What We Know
“A fascinating picture of frontier Kentucky. . . . The story of Jemima’s abduction, an exciting and revealing episode in the history of America’s westward expansion, deserves to be retold. To his credit, Pearl resists oversimplifying a history that has been too often presented as a frontier romance, showing us that it is as much about the women, children and Native Americans who played a part in it as the famous men who ensured it would be remembered.” — New York Times Book Review on The Taking of Jemima Boone
“It seemed Jemima Boone’s fate to be taken hostage—if not by Kentucky Indians then by fiction and legend. Even a cousin had a go at her story, in verse. Sensitively and eloquently, writing his way around the silences, Matthew Pearl rescues her at last. Fearlessness seemed to run in the family; Jemima could neither read nor write, yet had an uncanny ability to communicate with her father, conspiring with him from a distance, assisting with his rescue, under gunfire, at close hand. A rousing tale of frontier daring and ingenuity, better than legend on every front.”
— Pulitzer Prize–winning author Stacy Schiff, on The Taking of Jemima Boone
“Not only did Matthew Pearl’s clear and vivid writing immediately sweep me up in a father’s fear, it pulled me into a larger and even more profound story, one that would change the course of three nations—one young, two ancient, all fighting for survival.” — Candice Millard, bestselling author of The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, on The Taking of Jemima Boone
2024-10-25
A genuineSwiss Family Robinson adventure, but darker.
Pearl, author ofThe Taking of Jemima Boone: Colonial Settlers, Tribal Nations, and the Kidnap That Shaped America, introduces readers to the vast Pacific Ocean in the 19th century, dense with seaborne commerce. Mostly small-time operations, the commerce could be legitimate (fishing, trade) or not (kidnapping indigenous islanders for slave labor on plantations). Despite its name, the Pacific is often stormy; there is a large literature on shipwrecks and castaways. Pearl turns up the Walker family: father, mother, three adolescent boys, and a dog engaged in shark fishing around the Hawaiian islands. In 1887, off Midway Atoll, a storm destroyed their ship, leaving them and 24 crew members stranded. To their surprise, they encountered a scrawny young man. He seemed congenial but was probably a psychopath. He had been abandoned months earlier by a crew who suspected he had murdered two of their members. Later, he and another seaman left in a small boat, promising to bring help. They reached an inhabited island but never mentioned the castaways. On a diet of birds, bird eggs, and fish, the Walkers and crew lost weight, many developing scurvy. Maddeningly, several ships approached but passed by, apparently unwilling to test the island’s dangerous reefs. Pearl relies heavily on contemporary journalism and unreliable records, so there is a good deal of speculation, many digressions to the experience of other castaways, and a detour into Robert Louis Stevenson, who used details of the Walker experience in his 1892 novelThe Wrecker.
A realistic castaway account.
