Well Born

Are the choices we make purely a function of free will shaped by life experience? Or, are our choices and accomplishments largely determined by predispositions and potentialities? Dr. Ann Lang, a professor of behavioral genetics, sought a deeper understanding of the biological mechanisms that shape us. Over the course of her research into heritable human characteristics, particularly intelligence, she discovered an unexpected family link to the very foundation of the once discredited and a now revived branch of human genetics. In the course of her work and evolving personal life, she is confronted by choices that would subordinated collective moral values to emerging social and political imperatives - forces that promise the advancement of human potential.

Well Born, a work of historical and contemporary fiction, explores themes of genetic heritability, particularly intelligence. It examines late 19th and early 20th century attempts to improve the lot of mankind through science-based social engineering. Following the life of an early disciple of the eugenics movement, we see the movement gain outsized global influence, then fade quickly in the aftermath of WWII. After an extended dormancy, the movement reemerges through advances in the fields of behavioral genetics and genetic engineering. Well Born presents its heroes with confounding moral dilemmas in the practical application of the movement's principal tenets and their deepest human impulses. In an age of growing experimentation with genetic engineering, Well Born is a timely work of fiction written for readers of both historical fiction and contemporary science.

After thirty-seven years, eighteen jobs, and three careers, Gary Hays discovered his two great passions: working as a classroom paraprofessional helping middle school students who struggled with reading and math. It was a career that afforded him abundant time to live out his other great passion as a committed lifelong learner. His studies and related research impelled him to write stories he found in chronicles of the past and present. Well Born is Gary's second novel. His first novel, Higher Ground, derives from research on his great grandfather, who lived through the tumultuous Civil War era and a portion of the Golden Age that followed. Hays delights in spurring his readers to grapple with sweeping social movements and the big ideas that test man's moral code.