Meet the Author: Sophie Elmhirst
Sophie Elmhirst is an award winning journalist. She writes regularly for the Guardian Long Read and the Economist's 1843 magazine, among others. In 2020, she won the British Press Award for Feature Writer of the Year, and a Foreign Press Award for Finance and Economics Story of the Year. Her first book, Maurice and Maralyn, will be published by Chatto and Windus in February 2024. You can find Maurice and Maralyn on our catalogue.
Who were your influences as you were growing up?
I read a lot as a kid - Roald Dahl, Joan Aiken, Shirley Hughes, Nina Bawden, Jill Murphy, Beverley Cleary and The Beano were all pretty key. They still are, as I have kids now. But God I loved TV, and then - once I was allowed to go to the video shop by myself - movies. I realise this makes me sound very old. But honestly, a combination of early '90s films like Sister Act and Philadelphia and TV shows like My So-Called Life and The Wonder Years basically formed my early adolescent brain.
We know you as an award winning journalist. How did you get into that line of work?
I started out working on magazines: Prospect, then a short-lived public sector magazine at the Guardian, then the New Statesman. All of them offered amazing experience - I worked as an editorial assistant, fact-checking, then gradually began editing pieces myself but I always wanted to write and managed to find a few opportunities along the way, especially at the New Statesman. It's the benefit of working somewhere small - you can wangle your way into the pages more often.
Eventually, I'd built up enough work and contacts to take the plunge and go freelance when I had my first baby. Freelancing can feel precarious, but I've been lucky in having the support of great editors at places like the Guardian Long Read, Harper's Bazaar, The Gentlewoman and the Economist's 1843 Magazine, who have all given me regular work.
Can you tell us a little about your new book Maurice and Maralyn?
It's a true story - a crazy story - of a young married couple called Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, who in 1972 decided to sail around the world on their way to a new life in New Zealand. Halfway there, they were hit by a sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Their boat sank and they were cast adrift on a tiny inflatable life raft and dinghy for nearly four months before they were rescued. The book charts that experience but also what came next; a strange bout of international fame followed by a return to anonymity. I hope it's also about the nature of marriage, different forms of isolation and what happens when we grow old as much as it is about the extremity of their experience.
As two people who never sought celebrity I'm guessing that it was not an easy book to research?
You're right - they disappeared from view for a long time - but thankfully they left behind a great store of material. They wrote four books, for starters, and were interviewed a lot after they were rescued. I had a brilliant archive researcher who helped me find old TV interviews and newspaper stories, and I also spoke to a number of surviving family and friends about them. Their friend Colin Foskett - who went on another long sailing voyage with them after their catastrophe - was particularly helpful and generous with his memories.
How did writing the book differ from your regular journalistic assignments?
Oh it was completely different - mostly because I'm used to writing about the living. I love journalism for the chance it gives you to watch people and ask them anything you like. Obviously I couldn't do that here and it was strange trying to conjure Maurice and Maralyn back to life on the page, based on all this amassed evidence. I kept wishing I could talk to them, and I'd watch these fragments of television interviews over and over again, just to pretend I was in their company.
Also, I'm used to writing stories that are more like a slice of someone's life, or a particular angle on a world or industry. You dip in and out of a subject, and capture it in a particular moment in time. With Maurice and Maralyn, I really wanted to do something that felt a little more total - to try and do justice to their whole lives, or as many dimensions of their lives as possible.
The story of Maurice and Maralyn is a universal one. It would make a wonderful film?
Ha, yes, maybe. Possibly a nightmare to make though, given that so much of it takes place on water. But I love the idea of them being brought to life in some way - and have endless ideas of who could play them... A friend of mine suggested Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, which made me laugh.
What is next for you?
Keeping on going with journalism, which is very much the day job, and one I love. It's wonderful returning to the faster pace of journalism and the chance to briefly plunge into a world, after spending years on a book. But, without doubt, I'd love to write another book...
One book, piece of art or music that everyone should experience?
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It contains everything!
The best piece of advice you were ever given?
Just keep going.