In a series of distinguished novels Gerald Warner Brace has given us pictures of life along and near the New England coast. 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.