Winner of the 2024 Nero Book Award for Non-Fiction, Sophie Elmhirst appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to discuss the true life adventure of ‘Maurice and Maralyn.’ Subtitled, ‘A Whale, A Shipwreck, A Love Story’, it’s described as an ‘enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit".
The presenter of this event, Sam Baker, is a journalist, broadcaster, author, former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan and Red. As well as the prestigious £30,000 Nero Gold Prize, 'Maurice and Maralyn' was selected as the Best book, 2024 by the Guardian, Observer, Economist, and Waterstones and a Sunday Times Best Seller.
The writer of the Guardian Long Read and a contributing editor at the Gentlewoman and Harper's Bazaar, this is Sophie’s first book. She describes how trapped in a family bubble during the pandemic, she read about wealthy people finding a private island or yacht in order to escape the ordeal at home. Further research uncovered 1973 newspaper reports about Maurice and Maralyn Bailey who survived being adrift in a raft after their yacht was hit by a whale and sank in the Pacific Ocean. Their original Memoir was called 117 Days Adrift (1974).
Over 40 years later, now that the Baileys have both died, she decided that their now largely forgotten ‘extreme experience’ should be retold afresh. We hear, in great detail, the early lives of Maurice and Maralyn in Derby, how they met and married, despite contrasting introverted and sociable personalities.
A few years later, they decided to give up their dull jobs and sold their bungalow to build a boat and sail to the other side of the world. The yacht Auralyn would have no radio transmitter as Maurice was keen “to preserve their freedom from outside interference”. They shared an indefatigable pragmatism as Maralyn could not swim as they set off on their epic voyage from Southampton to New Zealand.
Sophie used Maralyn’s diary to find an inner voice but she revealed few personal feelings. This leads to a discussion on the ‘novelistic’ approach such as the apparent invention of their private thoughts throughout the story. Sophie describes how she met family members to understand their individual characters in order to reflect truthful emotions and mood as part of the non-fiction narrative.
Sam Baker concentrates on the couple’s strained relationship at sea - ‘for what else is marriage, if not being stuck on a raft with another, trying to survive?’ Maurice withdraws into himself while Marilyn is optimistic, in charge of a daily routine to keep sane. Unfortunately, neither the navigational route of their journey nor the eventual rescue are mentioned in this conversation – perhaps to entice us to read the book.
There were ten minutes at the end for questions from the audience. ‘Why is it called ‘Maurice and Maralyn’ – not ‘Maralyn and Maurice’? Sophie does not know but the convention is the husband’s name first. ‘Will there be a film version?’ Yes, the book has been optioned but it can take several years for funding and negotiation. Curiously, the American version has been changed to ‘A Marriage at Sea’ as it was deemed the name Maralyn would be confused with Marilyn Monroe!
30th August 2025: three brothers, Jamie, Ewan and Lachlan Maclean from Edinburgh claimed a new world record for rowing non-stop across the Pacific Ocean in 140 days, facing violent tropical storms during their 9,000-mile journey from Peru to Australia.
Maurice and Maralyn Bailey’s arduous voyage across the Pacific in the 1970s clearly remains a topical tale of endurance as one of the longest real-life survival stories at sea.
This event took place at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, 13th August, 2025
‘Maurice and Marilyn., by Sophie Elmhirst is published by Vintage, £10.99.
ISBN-10 : 1529931495