Waltzing with Bracey: A Long Reach Home
By Brenda Gilchrist ’47
Bauhan Publishing, 2012
In this brave and thoughtful memoir, Brenda Gilchrist tells the story of learning to claim her place in the world—Deer Isle, Maine—and a wonderfully bossy little corgi, Bracey, who helps her to do so. After a girlhood spent abroad in various world capitals, Gilchrist never felt entirely at home anywhere, or indeed, particularly confident about who she was. Her family’s Deer Isle summer cottage might qualify as an anchor of sorts. But there are so many ghosts up there—so 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 Main 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.
Brenda Gilchrist worked at various jobs in the New York art and magazine worlds, including the Brussels World’s Fair, Museum of Modern Art, and SHOW magazine, before she became senior editor in charge of Arts Book Division at Praeger Publishers. She was also general editor of the Smithsonian Illustrated Library of Antiques series. Since moving to Maine in 1990, she has written, illustrated, and designed books published by Braceypoint Press.