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BPL Book Club

A marriage at sea: a true story by Sophie Elmhirst

Set sail for lively conversation with our next book club pick, the nonfiction nautical adventure, Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst!

Set sail for lively conversation with our next book club pick, Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst! A Marriage At Sea pairs high seas adventure with a love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable.

Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He's a loner, awkward and obsessive; she's 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 Maurice began to study nautical navigation. Maralyn made detailed lists of provisions. And in June 1972, they 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 jaw-dropping fight to survive on 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 can't run away from themselves.

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