A Marriage at Sea

Sophie Elmhirst retells the true story of Maurice and Maralyn, an odd couple: he a loner, awkward and obsessive, she charismatic and ambitious, united by a horror of wasting their lives. In June 1972 they set sail. The voyage went smoothly for close to a year, until a whale breached far out in the Pacific, holed the boat and sank it. Adrift for months on a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, with little hope of rescue, the two had to learn not only how to stay alive but how to get along, as their marriage met its hardest test. The New York Times named it one of the 10 best books of its year.

Barack Obama picked it as one of his favorite books of summer 2025, calling it an amazing true account of a couple surviving disaster on the open ocean.