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Cast Away

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Cast Away by Francesca De Tores, read by Thoren Ferguson

How big must a man’s folly be, that it can cost him the whole of his life? As big as a ship; as big as an island.

1704: Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk has been abandoned by his own shipmates on a remote, uninhabited island. With little hope of rescue, and wild goats and cats as his only companions, he is forced to confront not only the urgent challenges of survival, but also the troubled, unsavoury past that has brought him here. What kind of man is deliberately stranded by his crew, to face near-certain death?

On the island, he must use his grit, tenacity and ingenuity to survive. As his isolation deepens, Selkirk’s experience takes an extraordinary and often blackly comic turn, for the island’s consolations prove as unexpected as its trials. The longer he is stranded, the more Selkirk wonders if he will ever escape the island, and in what ways he will be changed if he does.

A tale of adventure and endurance, isolation and friendship, despair and hope, this gripping, singular novel asks who we are – and who we become – when everything else is stripped away.

In Cast Away, award-winning author Francesca de Tores boldly reimagines the real-life story of Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for the classic novel Robinson Crusoe. The world knows Crusoe’s story – yet what unfolds on Selkirk’s island is stranger by far . . .

Critics Review

A revelatory meditation on humanity . . . If you’re wondering how any author could wring a novel of more than 300 pages out of such scanty components, the answer is soon clear: compelling characterisation. De Tores’s Selkirk is an adorably reprobate antihero whose company never palls as we follow him through his long days spent hunting and skinning goats, smoking, scavenging and – understandably – engaged in furious bouts of onanism . . . A poignant, sophisticated portrait of a man far more modern and interesting – at least in De Tores’s telling – than the historical record might let on
Guardian
De Tores builds Selkirk’s world with detail and patience – it’s an impressive imaginative feat
The Times
Illuminating . . . Cast Away is excellent in basically every way imaginable . . . de Tores creates a piece of work that feels both intimate and universal, plausible and mystical, gritty and transcendent. Like with Hilary Mantel’s wonderful Wolf Hall, Cast Away can be enjoyed on its own terms as a rollicking adventure story
Irish Independent
Forget Robinson Crusoe, this witty new retelling is undeniably brilliant . . . The result is such agile, witty, sophisticated entertainment . . . Pathos, elegance and paciness are expertly combined, drawing the reader in with gallows humour. By the time the trap door of de Tores' novel swings open, its brilliance seems undeniable
Sydney Morning Herald
What I imagine must have been lengthy and meticulous research has transformed on the page into a vivid, utterly convincing and immersive read . . . Beautiful, fascinating, heartbreaking, philosophically engaging – and often very funny. A necessary and delightful corrective to the Crusoe mythology
JO HARKIN, author of The Pretender
A timely and reassuring consideration of human resilience and resourcefulness. It is also a testament to de Tores’s research: her willingness to draw from history and get elbow-deep in the goat skins . . . de Tores’s novel should rise to the top of our to-be-read lists
The Conversation
What makes Cast Away exceptional is the way de Tores threads Selkirk’s metaphysical struggles through the story, and writes about them with poetry, whimsy and humour. De Tores asks: what is the nature of a human, when everything extraneous has gone? I read Cast Away over one weekend and could not put it down. I adored it
TONI JORDAN, author of Tenderfoot
Delivers rich detail . . . with a concrete physical immediacy that is absolutely persuasive
New Zealand Listener
de Tores has done her research on Selkirk and gets the historical facts right . . . Cast Away leaps from page to page . . . Had this novel been published before 2019, it may well have made it onto the BBC’s list of the 100 novels that shaped our world
The Australian
A brilliant story that drew me in from the first line . . . de Tores weaves a tale of survival and philosophical reflections about what it means to be human
Good Reading Magazine
Author Francesca De Tores
Narrator Thoren Ferguson
Duration 14 hours and 8 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781526661425
Format Audiobook
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
Genre Historical fiction
Availability AU, GB, IE

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