The Watch at Peaked Hill: Outer Cape Cod Dune Shack Life, 1953–2003

For a small group of intrepid adventurers, summer means living in a minimalist shack on the dunes at the tip of Cape Cod. For years these diminutive abodes have attracted artists, writers, and naturalists longing to escape the hectic hubbub of their day-to-day lives. The writer Josephine Breen Del Deo has been part of the dune shack community at Provincetown for over fifty years. In this memoir she describes not only the idyllic life, but also the struggle to maintain that life in the face of the constant impact of waves and shifting sands, as well as efforts of the government to remove the shacks and create a more "pristine" natural setting. In the process, she brings the history to life, setting it in the context of larger events and populating it with the interesting, often eccentric characters who have lived on the dunes. Read more