Maurice and Maralyn

Sophie Elmhirst

Chatto

£18.99

Those of us who already have 117 Days Adrift, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey’s extraordinary tale of survival, on our bookshelves, might wonder whether we need an outsider’s account. Sophie Elmhirst recreates their ordeal, drifting in their life raft in the Pacific after collision with a whale, but also places them in context, both of the 1970s world they were trying to escape and the strange world of celebrity to which they returned. She succeeds particularly well in portraying the complex, sometimes difficult character of Maurice as well as the extraordinary resilience of Maralyn.

This is a human rather than a yachting story: ‘for what else is a marriage really , if not being stuck on a small raft with somebody and trying to survive?’