In 1923, having persuaded her resistant mother to send her to college, Kate Croft falls in love with science. Painfully rebuffed by a girl she longs for, and in flight from her own confusing sexuality, Kate finds refuge in the calm rationality of biology: its vision of a deeply interconnected world, and the promise that the new field of genetics can explain the way people are. But science, too, turns out to be marred by human weakness. Despite her hard work and extraordinary gifts, Kate struggles, facing discrimination, competition, and scientific theft. At the same time, a love affair is threatened by Kate's obsession with figuring out the meaning of the puzzling changes she sees in her experiments. The novel explores what it takes to triumph in the ruthless world of mid-20th-century genetics, following Kate as she decides what she is-and is not-willing to sacrifice to succeed.

About the Author
Rachel Pastan is the author of three previous novels, most recently Alena, which was named an Editors' Choice in The New York Times Book Review. The daughter of a molecular geneticist and a poet, she has worked as editor at large at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and taught fiction writing at the Bennington Writing Seminars, Swarthmore College, and elsewhere.

Reviews
"An inspiring story of triumph against the odds in a historical based loosely on the life of Nobel-winning scientist Barbara McClintock . . . spirited. This swift story educates as much as it excites." -- Publisher's Weekly
". . . offers a compelling journey through the frustrating, stymied, yet often fascinating world of scientific innovation. . . . Pastan displays the distinctly human side of scientific discovery-its many pitfalls, thrills, and missteps." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Rachel Pastan (Alena) offers a compassionate, clear-eyed story of self-determination, love and science. In the Field excels in its multifaceted view of a complex woman: scientist, lover, friend, student of life in both biology and philosophy. Readers will be better for time spent with this patient, tender, loving examination of a life devoted to examination of life. Kate is a character who will stay with readers for a long time." -- Shelf Awareness

"The novel, sensual, stirring, suspenseful...a story splendidly imagined, but with all the dimension and complexity that comes from the author's original fascination and respect for the real-life character."-Los Angeles Review of Books

"Rachel Pastan has written a compelling and compulsively readable tale about a complex woman's path to success in biological science, showing us, through subtle social conflicts and in lucid evocative prose, the difficulties of entering any field as an unconventional, impassioned participant."-Harold Varmus, Lewis Thomas University Professor, Weill Cornell Medicine; Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine

"Rachel Pastan's In the Field is a thoroughly engrossing and timely adjacent-to-reality story about many things at once, both intimate and public. I was most compelled by its reminder that the pursuit of scientific discovery challenges its actors with painful moral dilemmas and dramatic choices at every turn. Her Barbara McClintock stand-in travels a road littered with so many boulders that her ultimate success is a cheering but complicated destination."-Rosellen Brown, author of Before and After and Lake on Fire

Awards
Joint winner of National Book Foundation/Alfred P. Sloane Foundation Science +Literature 2022 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9781953002129
Author Rachel Pastan
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Delphinium Books, Inc
Publisher Delphinium Books, Inc
Weight(grams) 399g