Publishing is nothing if not cyclical and trend chasing. At the moment romance is hot (and will continue to be), and there are several novels set in and around the world of reality television. Sometimes they overlap. Marooned is the latest example, but it does not do a good job of presenting a Survivor surrogate or a compelling love story. Ben Chalfin’s second novel instead reads like it was written in outline and never expanded upon. It’s far more artificial than even the most contrived of real life reality shows.
Ryan Levine signed up for Marooned not just because he’s been watching since he was 10 years old, but to pay his sister’s medical bills. What he did not bargain on was being instantly smitten with his handsome tribemate, Cole. Ryan has to spend the next month of his life trying not to get too close to Cole while also battling it out with sixteen other contestants for one million dollars.
It’s no secret that the show Marooned is a blatant Survivor clone; after all, the genre mostly works by incorporating existing formats with the serial numbers filed off. However, Marooned has almost no points of difference between itself and the real Survivor apart from the fact that, as presented, Chalfin has made it into an incredibly dull game. This is not helped by the fact that the host, Alex Crawford, has dialogue taken almost verbatim from Jeff Probst, and much of the terminology – immunity challenge, Tribal Council, Jury, Hidden Immunity Idol – is lifted wholesale. Unlike Probst, Crawford is a non-entity. Say what you will about Probst (and there are many, many things you can say about him), the man has personality.
The supporting cast are from central casting, including Ryan’s number one ally, Rhonda, a wise Black mother who calls him “chile”, and Marina, a Latina tribe member whose dialogue, when she has it, is peppered with random Spanish words. One of these Spanish words or phrases turned up no result when googled and, while this may be changed in time for the publication date, it is not inspiring. Rhonda and Marina get off lightly compared to the rest of the cast, who are interchangeable names without anything to define them other than being on a television contest.
What Chalfin ultimately treats us to is a one sided recap of a particularly uneventful season of a long running competition. Without access to any of the other contestants you get no real sense of what’s going on because Ryan himself is unwilling to engage with what he’s doing: when there’s no challenge happening, there’s a lot of hanging around at camp. Confessionals seem to be only recorded once a day, in the morning; Ryan has an infuriating habit of completely tuning out at Tribal Council, which you absolutely have to be on top of if you stand any chance of winning the game.
This drab character only has eyes for Cole, because Cole is, we are told, attractive. In a hilarious dropping of the ball from production, he is revealed under cover of nightfall to be bisexual. That and his penchant for using seasoning to make food taste good (he’s a chef) are the two things that we learn about him. Then Ryan can moon over him while going through the motions of competing in a battle royale that he seems increasingly divorced from the outcome of, even if he needs the pay out to settle his debts.
Marooned tries to be two things, and it succeeds at neither of them. It’s far from the first romance novel set in and around a televised reality competition, and it does nothing to differentiate itself from the crowd (to paraphrase another, better, novel, “even gay” is not enough). Someone with an even rudimentary understanding of television production will instantly be struck by the lack of verisimilitude. In an increasingly crowded market, discerning readers could throw a sand bag and very likely land on a better book than Marooned.
An Advanced Reader Copy was provided by Rising Action for review.
