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Gail Gilmore

Goodreads Author

Website

https://www.gailgilmoreauthor.com

Genre

Nonfiction, Memoir, Fiction

Member Since

April 2017

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Gail Gilmore is the author of "Solomon: One Dog's Improbable, Two-Year, Thousand-Mile Journey to Find Home" and the memoir "Dog Church." Formerly from the Boston area, she lives in the New Hampshire mountains with her spouse and rescue dog. She is currently working on her first novel. ...more

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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Gail Gilmore Now that my second book, "Solomon: One Dog's Improbable, Two-Year, Thousand-Mile Journey to Find Home" is two weeks away from its publication date, it…moreNow that my second book, "Solomon: One Dog's Improbable, Two-Year, Thousand-Mile Journey to Find Home" is two weeks away from its publication date, it's time to write an updated answer to this question!

"Solomon" is the true story, told in creative non-fiction as opposed to journalistic style, of a shelter dog named Solomon who spent two years traveling on his own through New England after being pulled from a high-kill shelter in GA and fostered in ME. Apparently knowing, in whatever ways dogs know these kinds of things, that his true home and family were elsewhere, he bolted from his foster home a month after his arrival and began his southward journey through ME, a sliver of NH, and MA, where he finally settled into an abandoned shed in a peninsula town south of Boston. Meanwhile, a team of dog recovery and rescue folks were trying desperately to catch him and bring him to safety. But Solomon outwitted them nearly every step of the way in his quest to find home.

I got the idea for the book while volunteering for the same dog recovery organization that was trying to recover Solomon. I was working on another case, a dog name Marisol who'd been missing for over a year at the time. While going back and forth into a large conservation area to set and check cameras and a feeding station after a confirmed sighting of Marisol, a fellow volunteer on team Marisol kept me informed on another case she was tangentially involved in - a dog named Solomon who'd been on his own for nearly two years. I was intrigued and awed, and soon became as invested as everyone else in Solomon's story and its (hopefully) happy ending. With every new effort to recover him, my heart soared, and with every failure (there were many) crashed. When this is all over, I thought, I'm going to write a book about this incredible dog and his amazing story. This is that book.

I got the idea for "Dog Church" from the experience of living with and caring for my dog Chispa, who had Canine Cognitive Dysfunction, a neurological disease much like Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia in people. The process of deciding whether or not it was time to let Chispa go was a very difficult one, forcing me to confront not only my complicated emotions regarding my deep love for her, but the many questions for which there were no concrete answers. During this time, I found comfort and, ultimately, the answers that had eluded me, through reading some of the thousands and thousands of notes left behind by visitors to the Dog Chapel in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, in memory of their own dogs. I've sometimes felt alone in the loss of an animal, or in the making of the types of decisions that almost everyone who loves a companion animal ultimately has to make. But reading and being in the presence of these notes, thinking about the people and dogs represented by each one, made me realize I wasn't alone at all, and I thought that many other people would find comfort in knowing they aren't alone, either. (less)

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What books are on your summer reading list this year?

Gail Gilmore Summer 2021: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; Mirrorland; Three Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton; Th…moreSummer 2021: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; Mirrorland; Three Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton; The Final Revival of Opal & Nev; Clap When You Land; The Midnight Library; Moxie; Girl A; Wild Women and the Blues; The Divines; Blind Turn; The Lost Apothecary.

The Fact of a Body, The Girls, Marlena, She's Not There, Rabbit Cake, Be Safe I Love You.(less)

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Gail Gilmore’s books

Average rating: 4.67 · 54 ratings · 33 reviews · 2 distinct works • Similar authors

	Solomon: One Dog's Improbable, Two-Year, Thousand-Mile Journey to Find Home 4.76 avg rating — 34 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dog Church 4.50 avg rating — 20 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Gail Gilmore and 1 other person liked Lori’s status update Lori Twining wants to read The Midnight Feast
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Oh, man, I loved everything about this novel. The writing is gorgeous; it took longer than it usually takes me to finish a book because I kept re-reading so many of the lines for their beauty and imagery. To me it's a perfect example of an upmarket b ...more
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I loved this book! As someone who devoured Emma Lombard's White Sails Series, I was so excited to read the first book in her new Gold Hills Series. It gives readers familiar with Lombard's characters the chance to revisit them, while providing a new ...more
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This book had me from endpaper to endpaper. It's well-written, imaginative, hopeful, and thought- provoking. I was rooting for Dawn to find her way through societal expectations, the expectations of her romantic partner, and what she assumes to be th ...more
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Gail’s Quotes

“You can’t change the music of your soul.

—In Esquire, 1967”
― Katharine Hepburn

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“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.”
― James Herriot , All Creatures Great and Small

tags: animals, gratitude, love, loyalty, soul

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“If we have souls, they're made of the love we share. Undimmed by time, unbound by death.”
― Jack Harper

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