Publisher's Synopsis
The university halls were bustling as students hurried to lectures and study groups on the brisk November morning. But inside Professor Wallace's cramped office, the air stood still and heavy. Joan sat motionless across the large wooden desk, watching his mouth move in solemn pronouncements she could scarcely comprehend. The preamble was bad enough - her graduate research scholar role terminated effective immediately due to "moral failings". But nothing could have prepared the star chemistry PhD candidate for what came next.
"As you'll surely understand given your...condition... it would be inappropriate for an unwed mother to continue association with such an esteemed institution. I'll offer you an hour to clear your desk." Professor Wallace maintained his detached professionalism handing Joan an empty cardboard box even as her bright academic future collapsed in ashes around her. Joan stumbled from his stifling office in numb disbelief, his condemnation still echoing. Brilliant peer researcher one day, social menace facing whispered disgrace from scandal the next over nothing but the growing life in her own womb. With bewildered tears burning tracks down her cheeks, she wandered aimlessly amidst familiar buildings and trees that suddenly seemed foreign and unwelcoming. In the painful months that followed, Joan slowly adapted to harsh new reality as a struggling single mother scraping by on coffee shop wages supplemented by the odd babysitting gig. She took night classes when she could to keep up momentum on her teaching certificate, yearning to regain purpose as an educator if not the high-powered research career that was so callously stripped away. All she knew for certain was that being forced out from campus with nothing but shame and regret in place of mentorship support only strengthened Joan's conviction that for too many women, asserting independence still meant sacrificing community when tough times inevitably struck. She became obsessed with creating radically different experience for all individuals reaching for knowledge and personhood long discouraged as beyond their station or abilities to grasp. The familiar hunger sparked within her once again - to transform outdated norms dictating who received opportunities to develop their full human potential. After years adrift, a chance to share her unconventional science lessons with audiences beyond ivory tower finally arises. But elitist establishment critics watch waiting for this unwed mother to flounder as such blackballed fallen women must in redemption narratives. Little do they know Joan is just getting started pushing every boundary dictating who belongs in spaces of innovation and intellectualism too long monopolized by powerful gatekeepers. Armed with grit, a sparkling wit, and scores to settle with oppressive conventions, she devotes the next three decades battling to secure unlikely foothold as celebrity scientist vanguard reaching forgotten young minds and modeling how science in service of people's real needs offers key to unlocking liberation.
