Waltzing with Bracey: A Long Reach Home
Brenda Gilchrist's writing is spectacular as lucent and fresh as a summer morning down east, with passages so splendid that I read them over and over. In an era when many memoirs ooze with graphic gore, Gilchrist's silken prose accommodates both the Edwardian grace of her eminent forbears as well as the self-defeating ancestor worship and grandiosity that have brought many of her kin to their knees. As for Bracey, not sinceLad, A Dog,have I encountered a canine on the page that is so alive and endearing and even noble. --Enid Shomer is the author ofTourist SeasonandThe Twelve Rooms of the NileBrenda Gilchrist has written a moving and eloquent memoir that takes us on a journey through her life, leading her back to Maine to a place that is both ancestral and new at the same time. Along the way, we also get to know her beloved dog Bracey, who is just the kind of four-legged friend we would all wish for. Together they are a wonderful pair a great storyteller and an attentive listener. This is a book about finding home how it s not only a place, but a dynamic and complex combination of history, community, and love. --Stuart Kestenbaum is the author ofHouse of ThanksgivingandPrayers & Run On Sentencesand is the director of the Haystack Mountain School of CraftsThis book is smart, funny, and brave. Beautifully written, it takes us places, introduces us to people and their stories, and teaches us something about self-acceptance, love, and finding home. It is a book with a big heart and a lovely wit. --Susan Hand Shetterly, author ofSettled in the Wild