I spotted Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst in a bookshop not long after it had first been published. In hardback, it was out of my price range. Debut books can typically come to market a few pounds cheaper in hardback than more established household names. This was retailing at £18.99, which I remember thinking was quite a bold move by the publisher. The ongoing success of the book just goes to show what a gem it is. The publishers knew this and they were prepared to back it.

I waited for the paperback to come around, seeing award wins, critical recognition and excellent reviews. Now, I finally feel part of the club!

Opening Chapter

Firstly, the opening chapter of Maurice and Maralyn is brilliant. I’ve sat in enough lectures, seminars and creative writing courses to witness the discussions around great opening lines, paragraphs, pages and chapters. Maurice and Maralyn’s first chapter takes us right into the moment of boat-wreck. In four and half pages, Maurice and Maralyn’s small boat is sunk by a whale in the middle of the pacific ocean. How could you not read on?! It’s a really fantastic piece of writing and editing. It sets the tone for how captivating the book continues to be.

118 days adrift

Maurice and Maralyn is a non-fiction account of how Maurice and Maralyn Bailey survived 118 days adrift at sea. It is written in a style that I really favour – one which reads like fiction. It’s like Sophie was there with them. We see very small excerpts from their diaries, but it never dominates. I was also grateful for the lack of boating jargon. I could respect how much Maurice in particular knew about nautical measurements and plotting records, without needing to be bogged down in the scientific that would ultimately go straight over my head.

Maralyn

I feel like I am having a great year for reading some fantastic female characters and extraordinary women. From Sonia in Kick the Latch to Mary in Clear, Maralyn is another woman I found to be utterly brilliant. Maurice is not above admitting that it was Maralyn that kept them alive. His tendency to be morose and despondent often marks his personality. When ships come and go and fail to spot them, Maralyn sees it as a sign that they are truly meant to survive. She is really remarkable.

Lift after rescue

I think it is fair to say that the most captivating element of the book is their bid for survival. It is simply something that so few of us could ever imagine going through. Being relentlessly at the mercy of the ocean and weather, in a tiny life raft in the middle of the ocean, makes for such compelling reading. It’s not to say that their rescue and life after their ordeal isn’t written with any less skill, but it serves as the comedown to the tense emotions of 118 days of trying not to die!

It also comes through that Maurice’s subsequent book of a trip to Patagonia doesn’t raise as much interest as the details of surviving the wreckage – ‘No one wants to read the story of an adventure going right.’ Because you are so attached to Maurice and Maralyn having read through their survival, you want to stick with them. The later years of their life are tinged with sadness and once again realising how much Maralyn was the person holding Maurice together.

It really is a wonderful account of the most extraordinary events. I have at least five people that I would recommend Maurice and Maralyn to already!