The
year is 1974 and Susan Barron has finished her PhD in psychology. She looks
forward to moving from graduate student to assistant professor. After months of
an unsuccessful job search, she faces another unexpected transition---a move
from New York City to another country. Her dissertation advisor, Dan Kavline, accepts
a senior faculty position at a university in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He
recommends Susan apply for an opening in a nearby institution in Victoria. He
offers her a co-authorship on a textbook as an incentive to make the move.
Faced with financial hardships but determined to start her academic career,
Susan opts to accept the only faculty position offered.
Susan arrives
in British Columbia and encounters a series of shocking surprises about Dan, his marriage,
and his influence in obtaining her academic position. She feels isolated from
her asocial department colleagues, and the embittered department chairman is
hostile toward new faculty. Some see her as an interloper from the States
taking a job away from a qualified Canadian. Her research and writing are
stalled by the overwhelming burden of her teaching responsibilities.
Her
first year as an assistant professor finds Susan caught between a budding
friendship with a first-year faculty colleague, Lucas Selkirk, and an unwanted personal
relationship with Dan Kavline. Susan eventually achieves her goals and receives
praise from the department but her rocky transition from graduate student to
assistant professor causes Susan to question the cost she paid to pursue her
chosen career path.
The
novel explores the conflicts faced by women entering the professoriate in the 1970’s
and 1980’s. Sexual harassment policies were non-existent and female mentors
were scarce. Personal needs often clashed with career ambitions as women
struggled to establish themselves as scholars and academics.
