Exiled to a rural college in the intermountain West, Emery Truitt still aspires to go back to his academic roots in the northeast. In the sagebrush highlands of southwestern Idaho, the ragged peaks of the Sawtooth Range serve as a rocky barrier against his hopes of returning. St. Clements College is a poor substitute for higher education. Its students lack the curiosity one expects in undergraduates. The faculty show more enthusiasm in rodeos and fly-fishing than improving the school's academic standing.

With an unwitting preference for male company, Truitt dismisses the efforts of language professor, Sofia Avila, whom he regards as a rival. His promotion comes at the cost of supporting her course on feminism. Amidst faculty issues and impositions by interloping females, a tragedy calls him home to Delaware. Secrets of a hidden past obliterate his ambitions and set off a vortex that absorbs his universe.

With the aid of once forgotten friends, Truitt embarks on a journey to find his lost past, driven until all certainty of who he is, and was, is lost. At the edge of desolation, he encounters a stranger in the desert who points him toward a mythic journey of transformation.

Shadows of the Unicorn is a story of love and communion, where traditional values of family are confronted by the rising tide of feminism, where ego and heart clash, and women struggle to forge their own futures.

Of what use were his achievements when she could not share them?

What purpose did his scholarship serve, if not to make her proud?

She's gone.

Who will bear witness to his glory?

Who will share his triumph?

Who will love him now?