Between Wind and Water

by Gerald Warner Brace

A classic collection of ponderings about maritime living for all lovers of Maine.

In a series of distinguished novels Gerald Warner Brace has given us pictures of life along and near the New England coast. Between Wind and Water is the distillate of sixty years of living and cruising and sailing along the Maine coast. Each chapter deals with some phase of life on the coast, most having to do with boats or longshore work. Some are about people and their ways, others about the old life of saltwater farms, and others detail the hazards of fog and storm, the pleasures of unfamiliar waters, and the satisfaction of meeting the elements. 20 black & white illustrations.

219 pages, Hardcover

First published June 2, 2008

Reviews

[robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are wonderful essays on different aspects of coastal living and sailing, but you have to allow yourself to fall into a different rhythm and enjoy them. There's no plot, no point, no story, just a steady progression that started to remind me of what it's like to be out on the water - somewhere to go, but nowhere really to BE, except in the moment. I almost put the book down in the first few chapters, but persevered and found myself engrossed.

I'll never live this life. This is someone who immersed himself in sailing from a very young age - I can't even imagine the freedom and confidence (possibly impossible these days) of allowing young boys to sail alone. But it was really pleasant to be told the story. I imagine that he has a storehouse of those perfect moments of alive-ness and clarity and being present in the world that come to most of us far too seldom.

[Joshua Horn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the type of book that I would normally never read, but I picked it up for an only tangentially related project, and ended up really enjoying it. The author was a novelist, and it shows - the writing is enjoyable and easy to read. He tells stories from his adventures and vacations in Maine. Although none of them on the surface are that dramatic, he can tell a good tale. The "message" of the book is also interesting. He was writing with nostalgia about an era in the history of Maine that in his day was already departing. At this point enough time as past that even his day is rather foreign to our own. It's thought inducing - how our modern life shapes us, and what we have lost in the inexorable march of time and technology.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is some beautiful prose in this book, but it didn't age as a fine wine.

I still think there are select passages that are well worth the read, but perhaps overall doesn't read as well as it did when first published.

[Mike Steinharter · Rating 3 out of 5]

He’s a good writer and I enjoyed the insights on people and ways of life. Not being a boat person I skimmed those parts.

[Howard Mansfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love letter to Coastal Maine, c. 1900 to 1966, and above all to boats. “Men marry ships as legally as they marry women, and suffer the same trials, feel the same kind of fidelity and responsibility, have the same pride and patience, and the same dream of a beauty and perfection just beyond mortal reach,” writes Gerald Warner Brace. Between Wind and Water is alive with his descriptions of sailing and running before the wind and being lost in the fog and the thrill of making haste to catch a breeze stirring on a hot, still August morning in a harbor. As long as people love the Maine coast and sailing they will find their way to this book.

[Jane Mclean]

Notes to self: A gift for our move to Maine. Published in 1966, before cable TV and the internet which brought the outside world to Maine, so many of the author's observations and musings are from another lifetime. Speaking of the sail, the horse, and the ski: "The old primitive necessities become the organized pleasures of city people." Great chapter: Cruising, about a trip in his youth up the coast with a companion.