Rights of the Heart: A Wisconsin North Woods Heritage

By Pat Maximoff

A Gift for everyone who has ever loved a summer home The hilarious and heartbreaking story of an aging summer cottage, built to be "a refuge from grief with room for joy." Faced with the intrusion of an air conditioner, the builder's grand-daughter reflects on how the cottage has battled change as it fulfills its purpose-cosseting lovers, defying gangsters, sheltering wounded animals and children, and facing unique problems such as a porcupine in the basement, badgers under the support posts and a refrigerator in the bedroom. We watch the cottage adjust to history, fight for survival and always remain itself-a small house, nestled into the gentle magnificence of the Wisconsin North Woods.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 059538627X
• ISBN13: 9780595386277
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 140 Pages
• Weight: 0.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Rights of the Heart review

Another adventure from Pat Maximoff. Her first, "Going to Nias", was an absorbing search for an ancient culture in a far away land. This one is an endearing tale of a family's relationship with a little house in Wisconsin's northern woods. Built by Pat's grandfather as grief's response to the death of a beloved daughter, the one room cabin grew with the family, providing refuge annually from a fast-paced life which took them to many parts of the world. For city children it was a different world; tadpoles and minnows to discover, glacier-smoothed rocks to pocket, chipmunks, deer, the odd bear---back away SLOWLY! The discipline of necessary chores mingled with new skills to master; swimming, rowing a boat, walking the deer trail barefoot---even getting up in the middle of a storm-tossed night to place pots and buckets under the drip from a leaky roof. The cabin and the adults had their own challenges. Winters are harsh in northern woods. Intruders - mostly shelter-seeking small animals, but an occasinal two-legged one - left their ravages. Pat's father and then her engineer-husband Bob had their skills tested by the need to add more shelter, shore up what sagged, get water up the hill. A good hammock book - warm and wise and witty - almost as good as being there.