Were you to cross George Howe Colt's recent classic, The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home , with John Grogan's beloved Marley & Me , you might end up with what Brenda Gilchrist has created in Waltzing With Bracey: A Long Reach Home . In this brave and thoughtful memoir, Gilchrist tells the story of learning to claim her place in the world; Deer Isle, Maine; and the wonderfully bossy little corgi, Bracey, who helps her to do so. After a girlhood spent abroad in various world capitals, Gilchrist has never felt entirely at home anywhere, or indeed, particularly confident about who she is. Her family's Deer Isle summer cottage might qualify as an anchor of sorts. But there are so many ghosts up thereso many august forebears to live up to. As a middle-aged New Yorker she confronts her Aunt Eleanor's bequest of the Deer Isle property. Moving to Maine full-time with her corgi puppy in tow, she sets out to claim not just this big, rambling, shingle-style pile of a house but also her own life. Bracey is vital to this process, serving as companion and example. There is a great deal to learn from this energetic little alpha, who seems never to have known a self-doubt in his brief, well-furred life. Here is a love letter to the glories of the Maine Coast and to the human/animal bonds that can so enrich a life. Table of Contents Family Cast of Characters Prologue How English You Sound The Dangerous Classes Finding Bracey Musetta's Waltz Patterns in Ice Skunk Hour Corgi Angels in the Snow Melon Spoons Hoopoes' Wings My Uffizi Telltales For the Moment Jousting Morpho Nimbus You Are Beautiful Top of the Stairs Bis, Bis Bracey Lavender Bay Epilogue Acknowledgments 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 since Lad, A Dog, have I encountered a canine on the page that is so alive and endearing and even noble. --Enid Shomer is the author of Tourist Season and The Twelve Rooms of the Nile Brenda 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 of House of Thanksgiving and Prayers & Run On Sentences and is the director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts This 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 of Settled in the Wild 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 since Lad, A Dog, have I encountered a canine on the page that is so alive and endearing and even noble. (Enid Shomer, author of Tourist Season and The Tweleve Rooms of the Nile) Brenda 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, author of House of Thanksgiving and Prayers & Run On Sentences) This 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 of Settled in the Wild and The New Year's Owl) Were you to cross George Howe Colt's recent classic, The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home, with John Grogan's beloved Marley & Me, y