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

"117 Days Adrift!" read the headlines, as well as the title of the book that Maurice and Maralyn Bailey published soon after being rescued from the raft they survived on when their sailboat was wrecked by a whale near the Galapagos in 1973. Actually it was 118 days, but Elmhirst is less interested in doing any correcting of the record of their well-documented adventure than, as her title implies, in painting a portrait of two singular people who twinned their lives together, before, during, and after the ordeal that made them temporarily famous. Maurice was obsessive and misanthropic, Maralyn was optimistic and capable; together their insular partnership reminded me, oddly, of the couple at the heart of another recent nonfiction favorite, Michael Finkel's The Art Thief.