A Marriage At Sea

Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He's a loner, awkward and obsessive; she's charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream - as we all dream - of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away?

Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But in June 1972, Maurice and Maralyn set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves.

What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can't run away from themselves.

Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, A Marriage at Sea pairs an adrenaline-fueled high seas adventure with a gutting love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable.

1. Why did Maralyn and Maurice want to untether themselves from 1970s British society?

2. Have you had a similar daydream of running away? What has stopped you from doing it?

3. On the Auralyn, Maurice and Maralyn provided different types of labor, with Maurice handling navigation and Maralyn taking care of provisions and bookkeeping. After the ship sinks, how is the labor between the two of them renegotiated, and why?

4. The acute stress of their situation unearths and intensifies parts of Maurice and Maralyn, good and bad-his self-sabotage, her fortitude. How does partnership operate to simultaneously reveal our innermost capabilities and exacerbate our greatest weaknesses?

5. Do you relate more to Maurice's pessimism or Maralyn's optimism? Who do you think you'd become under such circumstances?

6. Before the shipwreck, the open sea is a place where Maurice feels a rare sense of control and understanding. But how did Maurice's relationship to control-the very thing that prepared him for the sea-ultimately hamper his chances for survival?

7. Several ships sail past Maurice and Maralyn without rescuing them. What effect did these repeated failed attempts at rescue and dramatic fluctuations in hope have on you, the reader?

8. Maurice and Maralyn decide to keep a pet turtle on the raft, an act that helps routinize their days and give them a sense of normalcy. Discuss the role of routines in the book. In what ways do their different routines help preserve their hope?

9. To the surprise of Korean ship captain Suh, the night after they are rescued, Maurice and Maralyn emerge from their cabin to peer out at the ocean, missing what had become their home. What about their experience draws them back, despite all that they endured? Does the book upend familiar notions of home, and if so, how?

10. Discuss Auralyn II. How do Maralyn and Maurice channel, or fail to channel, what they learned from the emotional and physical hardships they endured on their nearly tragic first voyage?

11. After Maralyn's death, Maurice learned that "he did not know how to live." How does the loss of Maralyn push him to take charge of his own survival, in ways he wasn't quite able to when they were lost in the ocean? What is communicated in that irony?

Book Club Talking Points:
This is such a strong book club pick because everyone is going to take something different from it. On the surface, it's an intense survival story, but underneath that, it's really about marriage - how people show up for each other when everything falls apart. It raises big questions about love, responsibility, fear, and resilience, and it naturally leads to thoughtful discussion without feeling heavy or preachy. It's emotional, gripping, and the kind of true story that sticks with you long after the last page.

THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER & ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025

A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025

ALSO NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY NPR, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, AND MORE

"This is nonfiction that reads like fiction - the best kind. Elmhirst's retelling is a triumph, second only to the seemingly impossible feat of Maurice and Maralyn themselves. You won't be able to put it down." - USA Today

"Remarkable... I found myself, alternately, holding my breath as I read at top speed, wandering rooms in search of someone to read aloud to, and placing the book facedown, arrested by quiet statements that left me reeling with their depth." - The New York Times

"Such an emotionally vivid portrait of a couple in isolation that I was shocked it wasn't fiction. How could a writer get so deeply into the minds of two real people in such extraordinary circumstances? ... So brilliantly depicted." - Elle

"A beautiful meditation on endurance, codependence, and the power of love. A dazzling book." - Patrick Radden Keefe

"An enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit." -Bill Bryson

An instant New York Times bestseller, this is the electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits.