[1] In her book, Irvine starts with the somewhat odd circumstances of this collaboration, in which she addresses Kingsland's ad for a “wife to live on a lonely island for a year”.

Matters grow worse when Kingsland's legs become infested with ulcers—it turns out he is allergic to the shark they are regularly eating—and the two are visited by two male naval postal officers who drop supplies.

Then, salvation comes in the form of natives from the neighbouring Badu Island, Queensland, who find the castaways and nurture them back, helped by occasionally passing white nurses.

They start a fulfilling, but awkward, sexual relationship; both enjoy the new quality of their marriage, but Irvine makes clear that she will leave him at the end of the year, as they had planned.

She feels that life has more to offer than being the wife of a castaway mechanic, and Kingsland accepts with a heavy heart, stating she is still too young to waste her dreams.

When Irvine met director Nicolas Roeg, he felt her story was perfect material for telling a relationship between an older man and a younger woman.