Save Our Souls: The True Story of a Castaway Family, Treachery, and Murder

SAVE OUR SOULS by Matthew Pearl caught my eye because of its title. A true Swiss Family Robinson story that involves murder sounded like the perfect break from all the fantasy novels I have been reading. However, what sounded like an intriguing story is, in actuality, a regurgitation of research and not one done very well.

SAVE OUR SOULS suffers from a serious case of too much information. There is no doubt that Mr. Pearl researched the topic, as he includes at least one footnote with its corresponding citation on almost every page. But therein lies the problem. Mr. Pearl finds a way to incorporate all his research into a short book. His notes are nearly as many pages as the story itself. There is too much information in such a short show more space that it is akin to drinking water from a wide-open fire hose. You can't process it all.

To make matters worse, Mr. Pearl opts to tell the story chronologically. While this doesn't seem like a bad organizational methodology to use for a historical narrative, it is to the reader's disadvantage here. Mr. Pearl spends large swaths of SAVE OUR SOULS going off on tangents every time he introduces a new person into the drama. The same holds for every new location mentioned or occupation. For every advancement of the castaway story, you must walk down at least one, if not more, other paths before Mr. Pearl finally gets back to the main narrative. If you take out all of the tangential information, the crux of the Walkers' shipwreck takes up very little room, and this is not a long novel to begin with.

While there is an interesting story there in SAVE OUR SOULS, it is not worth the effort required to dig that story out of everything else. There is no doubt Mr. Pearl is enthusiastic about this little moment in history, but his enthusiasm is overwhelming. His tangential explanations cause the main narrative to be disjointed. Plus, he doesn't always tie those tangents back into that main narrative, which serves to increase any confusion you may already have. You could get everything you need to know about the Walkers' tale from a simple Wikipedia entry because, in the end, that is all it needs to be. SAVE OUR SOULS is nothing more than a spewing of facts and numerous tangential history lessons for a moment in time that had no lasting impact on the world at large. show less

As noted by prior reviewers, what should have been a compelling story is obfuscated by the author's style of including far too much unnecessary detail and/or digressions.

The fascinating facts are straightforward. A family and related crew are shipwrecked on a remote Pacific Island inhabited by a lone man who also is a murderer. Instead of focusing on these characters, the author has seemingly fallen in love with his research and insists upon including irrelevant detail. Concise emphasis on the main protagonists would have made this a far more enjoyable book.

I understand the criticism that the book goes many different directions and offers a lot of information. I, too, was looking for a deeper look into the souls of the principle players across their 14 month ordeal, but that was just my expectation. I like survival stories. BUT, I feel patience is rewarded when the various strands come together by the final chapters. It wasn't what I expected, but I thought it was masterful writing. It wasn't merely one family's saga but a big picture of connectedness in that time period in that sailing world. A good book, a lesson in surrendering expectations and patient reading.

This has the bones of an exciting story, but the story teller didn't make anything of it. This wants to be narrative non-fiction but it's just a recitation of events.

nonfiction - historical adventure.
February 1888 - a world-traveling husband and wife originally from Britain and their three teenaged sons, plus their crew of 24 sailors are lucky to make their way to a deserted island at the Midway Atoll (famous for its ship-breaking reefs) after being shipwrecked, but the castaway Hans who has already been living on the island may not be as friendly nor as well-meaning as he pretends.

An action- and adventure-packed nonfiction narrative about the story that would loosely inspire RLS' (co-written with his stepson) novel The Wrecker.