In this first novel from award-winning writer Sara Rath, the forests and lakes of northern Wisconsin pose a daunting threat to outsider Hannah Swann, who is content with her quiet life in Madison, Wisconsin, where she teaches and writes screenplays about obscure nineteenth-century poets. Her relationship with her college-aged daughter is strained yet candid, and a long-standing affair with a married professor has its own peculiar ups and downs.
    When Hannah unexpectedly inherits her uncle's rundown resort, she must head to the northwoods to close up and sell the business. But the only interested buyer is Ingold, an international mining company, and Hannah finds herself reluctantly operating the resort while trapped in the midst of a treacherous dispute between Ingold and Uncle Hal's activist friends.
    From safeguarding the wilderness to pursuing elusive new love interests, Hannah has plenty to engage her imagination at Star Lake. A new aspect of her personality emerges, one that is surprisingly courageous and compassionate. Throughout this humorous, elegantly plotted adventure with its appealing characters and lyrical depictions of nature, Hannah encounters the inevitability of change—in herself and in the nostalgic landscape of the deep North.

Sara Rath is the author of four volumes of poetry and five nonfiction books, including The Complete Cow. She has also written for television and film. She lives in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

Categories

• Fiction
• Nature / Environmental Conservation & Protection

Product Details

ISBN: 9780299215248
ISBN-10: 0299215245
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Publication Date: April 26th, 2006
Pages: 334
Language: English
Series: Library of American Fiction

“Star Lake Saloon and Housekeeping Cottages is an environmental romance with a wicked sense of humor. Rath’s work exudes a practical and earthy optimism.”—Trudy Lewis, University of Missouri–Columbia

“Readers will enjoy how Rath has thrown in a bit of everything—mystery, family drama, love story, and comedy—and will certainly like getting to know Hannah as she fights big business, hot flashes, and her own resistance to this wild and lovely place.”—Booklist, July 2005

“With their heartthrobs, heartaches and general distemper, the denizens of the Star Lake Saloon and Housekeeping Cottages are genuine characters, regional archetypes and all-too-human beings. Sara Rath's keen sense of detail and tender eye for small-town mysteries and interstices make this a heartfelt debut.”—Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean and The Breakdown Lane

"An extremely pleasurable diversion! Is there a Wisconsinite who does not have the fondest memories of a place just like Star Lake? A compelling reminder of the importance our environment holds in bringing us peace, rejuvenation, and a connection with others."—Karen Fischer, Great Old Broads for Wilderness