Francesca de Tores’ Cast Away: The Surprising Adventures of Alexander Selkirk is a strikingly original and deeply immersive reimagining of Robinson Crusoe. Fair warning, though: readers expecting a familiar tale of survival will find something far more nuanced and intellectually rich.

The novel follows Alexander Selkirk, the real-life mariner whose story inspired Daniel Defoe’s classic, from his impulsive decision to be marooned on a remote island through the long, disorienting years of solitude that follow. Rather than centring on adventure alone, de Tores turns her focus inward, tracing Selkirk’s psychological and moral journey as he confronts the consequences of his past and the realities of his own character.

What sets this novel apart is its refusal to romanticise its subject. Selkirk is not portrayed as a conventional hero, but as a deeply flawed, often unlikeable man—capable and resilient, yet also selfish and morally compromised. His isolation becomes not just a physical ordeal, but a reckoning. As the narrative unfolds, his descent into semi-madness is rendered with remarkable clarity and control, each turning point feeling both inevitable and profoundly unsettling.

De Tores’ command of voice is exceptional. She captures the cadence and consciousness of an early eighteenth-century sailor with striking authenticity. The writing is, without question, the novel’s greatest strength.

In its second part, the novel takes on a more philosophical dimension, engaging with questions of religion, morality, and the meaning of existence. These passages are handled with intelligence and restraint, reinforcing the novel’s central concern: not what happened to Selkirk, but who he was—and what solitude revealed.

Cast Away is not simply a story of survival—it is a profound character study, elevated by extraordinary prose and psychological insight. De Tores has crafted a work that is both historically grounded and refreshingly modern in its sensibilities: a compelling and memorable novel that lingers well beyond the final page.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

‘…I am cast upon this island only by the catastrophe of my own personality, which is a sobering thing, even for a man little used to being sober’.

At the age of fifteen, Alexander Selkirk fled his small, insular Scottish town for the sea. Upon the rolling waves - despite storms, privation and violence - he gradually raised himself to the position of navigator. And despite the precariousness of life at sea, he always survived. Until finally, his arrogance, his hubris, left him marooned upon a small island in the middle of the vast Pacific.

‘Castaway’ is an immersive piece of historical fiction inspired by the real-life story of Alexander Selkirk, an 18th century Scottish sailor whose experiences also went on to inspire Robinson Crusoe.

Told in a style that reads almost like a journal, replete with sailor’s slang and nautical detail, the novel follows Selkirk through the four years he spent marooned on a tiny island 400 miles off the coast of Chile. What begins with stubborn certainty and dismissal gradually gives way to anger, loneliness, hopelessness and delusion, before finally arriving at a kind of hard-won self-reckoning and philosophical peace.

There’s very little ‘action’ in the traditional sense, but that’s exactly the point. This is a deeply internal novel, focused less on survival and more on the slow psychological unravelling of a man stripped of everything familiar. ‘When you live amongst people you are always seen…a man is shaped by those expectations, and responses, so that he may measure himself against those who surround him’.

Francesca de Tores captures this shifting emotional landscape beautifully, making even the smallest routines or discoveries feel significant. ‘I shall not starve, but the island kills me in a thousand mundane ways…I am impaled on the curve of time’.

At times the pacing felt a little repetitive, though I suspect that mirrors the monotony and isolation Selkirk himself endured. Still, this is a thoughtful, introspective and surprisingly moving novel. ‘Castaway’ works both as compelling historical fiction and as a fascinating character study.

‘Once there were things, and the words for things. Now the words begin to fall away’.