Book Review: “Chemistry Lessons” by Bonnie Garmus


Welcome to Group Text, a monthly column for readers and book clubs, to talk about novels, memoirs and collections of stories, ask questions and want to live in a slightly different world.

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Here are a few words I hate in connection with fiction written by women: Sassy. squeamish. Frenzy. These so-called complementary adjectives have a way of removing the qualities they should describe: opinionated. Enjoyable. Intelligent. The latter should not be confused with his bossy cousin, Clever. I don’t even need to start with Gutsy, Spunky and Frisky, the hapless generation of Beni Relatable.

Other than that, let’s talk CHEMISTRY LESSONS, Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday, 386 p., $29), A debut novel about a dogged, funny, and intelligent scientist in the 1960s. Unfortunately, Elizabeth Zott was rudely and roughly sidelined by her male colleagues, who portrayed Don Draper as a SNAG (Sensitive New Age Man).

Exactly how she missed her doctorate and lost the love of her life – Calvin Evans, a kind-hearted scientist, expert rower, and father of her daughter Madeline – are central elements of the story, but feminism is the catalyst for it. It makes it foam like hydrochloric acid on limestone.

Elizabeth Zott has no moxie; he has the courage. She is not a “girl boss” or a “female chemist”; she o she is a trailblazer and an expert in abiogenesis (“the theory that life arises from simple, non-life forms”, if you don’t know). Shortly after Zott converted his kitchen into a lab equipped with beakers, straws, and a centrifuge, he winked to host a solemn television cooking show called “Dinner at Six.” But she won’t be able to smile and read cue cards, she. By stepping into the role that suits him, Zott treats creating a casserole, or casserole, as a major experiment that must be undertaken with great seriousness. Think molecular gastronomy in an age of canned soup. Each episode is a healthy serving of empowerment, with no frills we associate with this term.

In addition to his serious take on the disappointments of a generation of women, Garmus adds plenty of lighthearted fun. There’s a mystery involving Calvin’s family and a glimpse into the politics and dysfunction of the local television station. Zott has a love affair with rowing, an unconventional approach to parenting, and a deep bond with his dog, Six-Thirty.

Yet beyond the entertaining subplots and witty dialogue, it’s the bitter truth that an intelligent and ambitious woman in 1961 had limited options. We see how a scientist driven into the kitchen finds a way to pursue a diluted version of his own dream. We see that two women working in the same laboratory have no choice but to turn their backs on each other. We meet her friend and neighbor, Harriet, who is trapped in a miserable marriage with a man who complains that Zott stinks.

“Chemistry Lessons” can be described in one or all of my elaborate words and eventually shelved in the maddeningly named “Female Fiction” section, which is supposed to get the generation going. To file Elizabeth Zott among the pink razors of the book world is to miss the sharpness of Garmus’ message. “Chemistry Lessons” will make you wonder about all the real-life women who were born ahead of their time – women who were cast aside, ignored, and worse, for not being as resourceful, determined, and lucky as Elizabeth Zott. She is a reminder of how far we’ve come, but also how far we have to go.


  • What do science and rowing have in common? Why do you think Garmus decided to devote so many pages to the sport?

  • Assumptions of her daughter’s talent aside, how is Zott’s approach to parenting 50 years ahead of his time?

Where did you go, Bernadette” by Maria Semple. You can’t get to know Elizabeth Zott without going nostalgic about the tortured, enigmatic, sarcastic yet vulnerable original heroine Bernadette Fox, who doesn’t care less what you think. If you haven’t read this book by now, we’re definitely not friends. I am sad, film not counted; Equalizing the two is like losing your trip to Italy because you ate a box of spaghetti.

lab girl” by Hope Jahren. Want to read a more hopeful – and true – story of a woman in science? Start with this memory of a geobiology professor who is now at the University of Oslo. Our critic called him “a gifted teacher’s roadmap to the secret lives of plants—a book that does at best for botany what the essays of Oliver Sacks did for neurology, what the writings of Stephen Jay Gould did for paleontology.” (Jahren also takes the stage for showing “the often ridiculous hoops that research scientists have to jump through to get minimal funding for their work.”)



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