A true story of a shipwreck with parallels to the Swiss Family Robinson

The name Swiss Family Robinson probably conjures something slightly different for each of us, depending on our age. It is an amalgamation of tales that evolved over time. An echo and a reimagining of Daniel Dafoe’s 1719 novel “Robinson Crusoe,” the first “Swiss Family Robinson” was published in 1812 by Johann David Wyss: a German “dramatization of how a husband and wife rear their children while stranded on a highly idealized desert island.” Wyss and subsequent writers who told the fictional family’s story followed a type: the “Robinsonade” tale where our hero is stranded and has to learn a series of valuable lessons as well as how to survive.

Writers after Wyss fleshed out the Swiss Family’s characters in greater detail, giving agency to each of them in subsequent publications of their story. And of course Disney took notice, making the 1960 film and adding the Swiss Family Treehouse attraction to Disneyland and Disney World, helping to firmly enshrine the Robinson myth in our consciousness.

In his new book, “Save Our Souls: The True Story of a Castaway Family, Treachery, and Murder,” Matthew Pearl tells the story of the only family known to have been shipwrecked together. Pearl unfolds this tale with suspense, opening at the moment of the family’s greatest peril, and then taking us back in time to just before they began their cursed journey. 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 Dublin-born Captain Frederick Walker, his wife Elizabeth 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.

In 1887, the Walkers, their teenage sons, their family dog and a small crew set sail from Hong Kong to pursue a fortune in shark fishing and then wrecked their ship, the Wandering Minstrel, in a storm. It broke up on the reef around Midway Atoll, “one of the most isolated — arguably the most isolated — pieces of land on the globe… 3,700 nautical miles east of Hong Kong and 2,200 miles east of Tokyo; it was 2,700 miles west of San Francisco and 1,150 miles northwest of Honolulu.” The family and crew make it to land but it’s clear almost immediately that nobody is coming to save them. As Pearl writes, “A lost or missing ship often triggered a political tug-of-war;” so the absence of a search party means the Wandering Minstrel and its passengers slipped unnoticed through every possible political crack. Pearl reconstructs the story of their lengthy stay on the island and the perils they faced. As in so many survival narratives, the island was less of a foe for the family than their crew’s selfishness and desire for power.

Like the fictional Swiss Family, the Walkers discover someone already living on the island where they find safety. “Hans Jorgensen from Denmark … had been stranded there for [8 months] and could educate the castaway family and their crew about the atoll.” Hans helps them stay alive, yet questions arise early in the days following the wreck. Is Hans a helpful savior who just happened to be there for them, or is he stranded on the island because of something more sinister? In the beginning, the Walkers have their suspicions but they need him in order to survive. Hans has a hut and he’s willing to share it. “Slowly,” though, “details slipped out that indicated Hans was very different from the person they thought he was. He hadn’t just randomly washed ashore onto Sand Island. He had been marooned there intentionally by another ship whose sailors knew the truth,” Pearl writes building anticipation by telling us about I Jorgenson’s sketchy past.

“Save Our Souls” gives all of the characters on the island their due, providing backstory and analysis of each person’s motivations. The author shows how these unlucky family members defy easy characterization, particularly Elizabeth, whose “role on ships required an adventurous spirit and a willingness to challenge stereotypes.” When they’re marooned, she cooks for everyone, yet she is a seasoned explorer herself. Hans is objectively dangerous, yet the Walkers and their crew are able to survive because of his guidance.

Isolation on the island and the futility of hope for rescue render different effects on each of the castaways. The ship’s second mate, George Hanker, retreated into himself when things got difficult, while others such as first mate John Cameron thirsted for power, relying on scheming to survive. The Walkers found themselves at odds with men in their crew and a split between two factions resulted in one side taking up residence on the smaller of the two islands. Even when several castaways managed to escape Midway Atoll, they deliberately obfuscate the truth about those who are left behind. They invent a story about the ship being sold off, “the Walker family [having] turned quasi pirate, selling the Wandering Minstrel somewhere in the South Pacific.” With the only people who know the truth stuck on the island, possibly dead, there’s no chance the escapees’ story will be refuted when they try to claim the ship’s insurance money.

Pearl grounds the story in the historical context of the nature of 19th century Hawaiian politics, commerce and European literary fascinations. This is also a uniquely 19th century story in that it examines philosophical questions of that time. Divisions between the Walkers and their crew represent literary ideas about good versus evil and the duality of man. As Pearl tells us, “Robert Louis Stevenson — who would later investigate the happenings at Midway — had mesmerized readers with Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s account of evil lurking within a respectable exterior, a horrifying notion to the reading public.” The idea of one’s potential to be a monster shows up frequently in literature of this era.

In “Save Our Souls” Pearl wants us to consider an old idea: “whether people torn from civilization and forced to rebuild their world from virtually nothing survive by turning against or toward each other.”

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.”

Heather Scott Partington is a teacher in Elk Grove and president of the National Book Critics Circle.