By Paul Carrier
Matthew Pearl’s Save Our Souls, which was released in 2025, has been likened to The Swiss Family Robinson, which Johann David Wyss published in 1812.
Both chronicle the fate of shipwreck survivors who become castaways. But there are key differences between the two books. Topping the list: The Swiss Family Robinson is a novel. Save Our Souls is not.
Pearl is best known for his novels (such as The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow and The Last Dickens) but he turned to nonfiction in 2021 with The Taking of Jemima Boone, which focused on the Indigenous kidnapping of Daniel Boone’s daughter in 1776. Now he’s back with Save Our Souls, a vivid account of a disastrous 19th-century shark-hunting trip and its aftermath.
It’s the fall of 1887. Frederick Walker takes command of the schooner Wandering Minstrel, with which he hopes to establish a shark fishery in the Pacific Ocean. His wife Elizabeth, their three sons, the family’s dog and a crew of 24 are aboard as well.
Frederick later finds himself facing a possible mutiny led by his first and second mates, but the Minstrel heads for Honolulu where the culprits are arrested. That leaves Frederick in need of new subordinates, and the man he hires as first mate is John Cameron, a Scot with extensive seafaring experience. Cameron proves to be a power-hungry, blackhearted scoundrel who believes Frederick is insufficiently ruthless.
On Feb. 3, 1888, the Minstrel runs aground on the coral reefs of Midway Atoll in the Pacific and breaks up. Everyone aboard (including the dog) escapes in lifeboats. They soon find themselves on Midway’s Sand Island, a small, desolate speck of land.
They aren’t alone. A Dane named Hans Jorgensen who lives on the island greets the newcomers and helps them adapt, but he has a dark secret. Although Jorgensen survived an earlier shipwreck, he’s not a mere castaway. He’s a murderer marooned by his shipmates.
And that’s just for starters.
Initially, no one sets out in search of the Minstrel because there is no reason for the outside world to fear that the vessel has met with disaster. A U.S. Navy ship planning to inspect Midway for American use fails to reach the atoll. Another ship, this one sailing from New South Wales to San Francisco, finds itself blown near Midway by heavy winds. Unaware of the castaways and hard hit by a hurricane, that ship is forced to change course.
Meanwhile, conditions on Sand Island deteriorate. Food is in short supply. The castaways split into competing groups: one committed to working together for the common good and the other adopting an every-man-for-himself attitude. Several crew members sneak off and set sail aboard a partially restored lifeboat. They are never heard from again. Jorgensen becomes increasingly erratic and hostile, leading Frederick to recall rumors he had picked up in Honolulu about a killer marooned on Midway.
Jorgensen concocts a plan to shoot one, or possibly all three, of the Walker children, but the second mate thwarts the attack. Once Walker learns of it, he decides to shoot Jorgensen, only to be dissuaded by his wife. The Walkers rid themselves of Jorgensen, Cameron, and a Chinese boy who also was part of the crew, by giving them a small boat and some supplies. If the trio makes landfall, the Walkers reason, they’ll disclose the whereabouts of the Sand Island castaways, if only to collect a likely reward from the Minstrel’s insurers.
After 43 days at sea, during which Cameron prepares to kill and eat both of his fellow travelers if necessary, the trio finally reach the Marshall Islands. Instead of seeking help for the castaways, Cameron claims the Walkers have sold the Minstrel and are now living in hiding. For the weakened and ill castaways on Sand Island, life drags on. The calendar turns from 1888 to 1889, but ship captains on tight schedules rebuff pleas by Elizabeth Walker's brother to search for Minstrel survivors. What will become of them?
Much of Pearl’s well-researched and scrupulously detailed saga reads like fiction. The twists and turns are all the more fascinating for being true. As Pearl tracks the fate of the crew members and the nefarious doings of Cameron and Jorgensen, the reader enters a world of opium smuggling, hungry sharks, pirated ships, fearless private detectives, dogged insurance investigators, ruthless kidnappings, the claims of a Japanese soothsayer, and tales of buried treasure. There’s even an appearance by Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. To Pearl’s credit, it all ties together remarkably well.
