Sophie Elmhirst

Sophie Elmhirst is the author of the book. Elmhirst approaches the Baileys’ story from the perspective of a journalist rather than a historian or memoirist. She first encountered their ordeal while researching a feature during the pandemic on people who choose to live on water rather than following conventional paths. This situates her interest in Maurice and Maralyn within her broader interest with unconventional lives and with the tension between freedom and constraint, but is not revealed until after the end of the book. Elmhirst’s writing is not a neutral chronicle but a subjective narrative in which the Baileys are transformed into characters in what reads more like a novel than a factual nonfiction account.

Elmhirst makes a deliberate decision to withhold her own voice and viewpoint throughout the book. The story is told almost entirely from the perspectives of Maurice and Maralyn, with the...