Cottage Test

Inspired by the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Kat and Adam Kramer and their two young children left a conventional life in Minnesota to experience a simpler way of living, close to nature in the peaceful Northwoods of Wisconsin. They built a five-hundred-square-foot one-room house with limited plumbing, grew most of their food, raised chickens and rabbits, and learned to forage and prepare wild edible plants.

Living in beautiful but isolated surroundings, Kat finds that the lack of a social life and Adam's growing moodiness are becoming almost unbearable. She recognizes that she must seek fulfilment and recognition of her value outside her home. When she begins working for the county extension office to share her cooking skills and to write recipes for Native Americans on the reservation, Adam's moodiness turns to emotional and then to physical abuse.

Kat, nevertheless, still loves her husband and doesn't want to end their marriage. When Adam threatens suicide, she seeks professional guidance and is advised that before Adam kills himself, he is likely to kill her and her children. But Kat refuses to believe that Adam will seriously harm them.

Cottage Test is a memoir that shows the painful struggle to acknowledge abuse and the agonizing decision to leave an abusive relationship.