A couple set out on a voyage across the ocean, but then their ship sinks, and they miraculously survive in a liferaft for 118 days. It’s a true story from the 1970s, and so the book is technically a sort of non-fiction but also reads like a fiction.
The husband, Maurice, wrote a book after the experience while the wife Maralyn kept a journal while they were adrift, so the book is also mixed in with occasional quotes from the pair themselves. The overall tone is a mix between fictional retelling and factual explanation (which makes more sense when you also realise the author is a journalist).
Also what I found interesting was it seems there was more recently a revived interest in the couple - Maurice was interviewed only a couple years before he passed away in 2019 by Alvaro Cerezo, and he had the foresight to also take photos of Maralyn’s journal.
Alvaro was also given a letter by Maurice which explained how he met his wife) which upon reading was almost exactly how the encounter was described in the novel.
Maurice is quite a good storyteller in his own right so this sort of gives me mixed feelings - is A Marriage At Sea a good book because of its author, or because of how good the original story was to begin with? It’s a pity Maurice and Maralyn have both passed away and are unable to see the renewed interest in their story.