A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck

THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER & ONE OF BARACK OBAMAS FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025ALSO NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY NPR, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, AND MOREThis is nonfiction that reads like fiction the best kind. Elmhirsts retelling is a triumph, second only to the seemingly impossible feat of Maurice and Maralyn themselves. You wont be able to put it down. USA TodayRemarkable 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 TimesSuch an emotionally vivid portrait of a couple in isolation that I was shocked it wasnt fiction. How could a writer get so deeply into the minds of two real people in such extraordinary circumstances? So brilliantly depicted. ElleA beautiful meditation on endurance, codependence, and the power of love. A dazzling book. Patrick Radden KeefeAn enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit. Bill BrysonAn instant New York Times bestseller, this is the electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mindblowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits.Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. Hes a loner, awkward and obsessive; shes 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 jawdropping 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 cant run away from themselves.Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, A Marriage at Sea pairs an adrenalinefueled 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.