Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe has spawned countless imitations, parodies, and reworkings. J. M. Coetzee tried one in 1987 called Foe. This novel is the latest.
The protagonist in this succinct novel is a middle-aged alcoholic who has been married and divorced three times. Crews, who has squandered an ample inheritance from his father, heads off on a fishing expedition with three other men. Their small plane goes down in a storm, and he's the only survivor in a wilderness area.
Sober for the first time in years, Crews devotes all of his energies to staying alive. By trial and error, he learns to be an architect-builder, a fisherman, and a cook. Getting in sync with the rhythms of nature is a daily challenge.
By the time he meets his Friday — a young wounded woman who is fleeing from her armed husband — Crews has expanded his repertoire of survival skills to the point where he can help another person. They work as a team and inch toward mutual trust.
Thomas Berger's reworking of the tale of Robinson Crusoe has its most poignant moments as Crews and Friday learn how to be good animals — alert to their senses and the simple pleasures of the natural world. In the end, these two dysfunctional souls--she's addicted to her abusive husband — reach out to each other and find the wholeness and healing that has eluded them in civilization.