GOLDEN DAYS
"A dash to the water's edge. A look back at us: Do you want to go swimming? No? Not now? Okay. Back up to the house she races, checking to make sure we're right behind her. Straight to the kitchen to her water dish. She drinks and drinks, then rushes to join us in the sunroom, sitting down in the middle of the room and breathing an immense sigh of contentment."
—Golden Days: Memories of a Golden Retriever
"What is it about golden retrievers that can break your heart?
Is it their love unconditional, love unqualified, love in its purest form?
The range of their emotions, from unimaginable joy to unthinkable sorrow?
Their original peculiarities that form unforgettable personalities? ...
What is it? I wondered that Saturday morning last October, as I lay in the sunlight on the carpet in the front hall of my parents' house, saying good-bye to Amy, their golden retriever, who had had a crush on me for the last ten years."
—Golden Days: Memories of a Golden Retriever
Set on the outer shores of Cape Cod where Amy romped and rollicked, this tenderly told love story illustrates what a golden retriever can teach us about ourselves and the world we share.
"Once someone has had the good fortune to share a true love affair with a golden retriever, one’s life and one’s outlook are never quite the same again. A warm afterglow remains that lasts a lifetime. This author is fluent in that language."
—Betty White
CONTENTS
A Morning in October
Homecomings
Pack Maneuvers
Roughhousing
Baywatch
Over the Bounding Main
Partings
October Light
PRAISE FOR GOLDEN DAYS
This book is a prose love song for an old golden retriever, sung to the rustic and nautical rhythms of the northeast coast. Like most good love songs, certain refrains keep running through your mind long after the singing has stopped.
STANLEY COREN
Anyone who likes dogs will feel that they have a new dog in their house when they read this book. Amy is so alive that she does not just stay on the printed page, but jumps right off the page and into your heart.
BROOKE ASTOR
Fun to read, full of light and friendship.
ELIZABETH MARSHALL THOMAS
With a tenderness and humor that practically waft off the page, Vanderbilt chronicles the sun-drenched pleasures of his family's annual summer sojourns on Cape Cod—and lovingly captures Amy ... whose ways and wiles did much to lend those days their glow.
TOWN & COUNTRY MAGAZINE
