Told with hardscrabble relentlessness and the kind of detail that can only come from fervent research, Pearl’s book demonstrates how one trouble leads to another when crises get most dire ... 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.
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 ... Gives all of the characters on the island their due, providing backstory and analysis of each person’s motivations ... Pearl’s take on the story of the castaways of the Wandering Minstrel also feels apt for our present moment.
