Book Review: The Human Trial

Review by Carole O'Neill

A small number of high school students graduate early and get accepted into a college program of their dreams. Very few graduate high school at 16 years old and go on to get a full-ride at Harvard University. However, Randy Archer, the son of a steel-mill worker in Pennsylvania, does just that.

​Audrey Gale, the author of The Human Trial, takes you back to the 1920s, against the backdrop of The Great Depression, and introduces us to Archer as he is still living at home with his father and older brothers. They all expect him to follow them to a life in the steel mill. He has another idea, but no financial way to fulfill that dream.

Gale describes how Archer defies the odds, with the help of his high school counselor and her friend at Harvard. She convinces Archer he will be mentored alone the way to a degree at the prestigious university unavailable to many.

During his years as a graduate student studying to become a pathology researcher, he meets a physics student, Adam Wakefield, working on his PhD. He’s developed a much-advanced microscope which allows the two students to discover a way to offer a non-traditional healing method to terminal patients.

There is, of course, a love interest that Archer can’t quite understand. Why such a beautiful girl from Boston’s Beacon Hill would be interested in him, stymies him. Gale keeps you believing they will make the perfect marriage, or will they?

The Human Trial has something for everyone: medical science, academic scheming, blue-collared families vs. Boston Brauhmans, and an impossible secret discovery everyone wants a piece of. This is a book that will keep you pulling for the underdog until the final pages.

Purchase The Human Trial on Amazon:
Paperback: https://amzn.to/3DquTdM​
Ebook: https://amzn.to/4hgoaRm

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