“Cardy Raper demolishes the caricature many of us have of women scientists: nerdy, bespectacled, polysyllabic, introverted spinsters devoted to their (usually abstruse) field of inquiry. She’s devoted, all right, not to just her science, but to life: From a childhood fascination with the natural world to a love affair with and marriage to a faculty mentor; from motherhood to widowhood; and finally from a voyage of discovery into what was at the time strictly a man’s world, to worldwide recognition as a leader of research in the fascinating world of fungi. Warmhearted yet vulnerable, often frustrated and saddened but never defeated, Cardy takes us with her as she enthusiastically probes the little known world of fungi (where one species may have 20,000 genders), the often hostile atmosphere of male dominated research, and the life of a working wife and mother.”

– Willem Lange, New England storyteller and author of Where Does the Wild Goose Go?, Intermittent Bliss, and others