Book Review: Lessons in Chemistry

There are certain books you could say I have “chemistry” with — those books where a handful of pages in, I realize, Oh, this is going to be good — and incidentally, one of those is 2022’s, Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus’ debut novel.

The main character, Elizabeth Zott, is a chemist-turned-TV daytime cook show host who is trying to navigate the patriarchal world of both science and television in the 1950s and early 1960s while raising a precocious child named “Mad” (Madeline) and a nearing-knowing-1,000-words-dog named Six-Thirty, while also balancing her grief after losing her world-famous chemist boyfriend, Calvin Evans. Calvin, you see, treated Elizabeth like an equal rather than someone meant to be subservient to him. He took her seriously. That’s why they had chemistry.

And Elizabeth’s cook show, which she does to support Mad after Calvin’s death and cooking is chemistry, becomes a syndication hit because Elizabeth represents a feminist clarion call for housewives to realize they can be more and like chemistry, change their station in life. Also, it’s a show that isn’t talking down to women or telling them how to improve for their husbands and children. Rather, it’s trying to uplift women and for them to realize they matter. Again, to take women seriously as fellow people with hopes and dreams and talents and skills.

But also, along with being an invigorating voice (including unabashedly talking on television about being an atheist), Elizabeth is hilarious because she’s “always serious” and literal. When Mad is accosted by her kindergarten teacher, for example, for saying that humans are animals, too, Elizabeth doesn’t realize the teacher is mad about that. Instead, Elizabeth is upset with herself for not teaching Mad better. After all, Mad said humans share 99 percent DNA with other animals, when in fact, the number could be as high as 99.9 percent. Or, when Calvin first is interacting with Elizabeth, he enters her lab and states, “Hello, it’s me.” She responds, “Me? Could you be more specific?” When Elizabeth is fired by the Hastings Research Institute where she met Calvin and was a chemist for being pregnant, the director is astounded that a woman would tell him what pregnancy is; he asks her who she thinks she is, to which Elizabeth responds, “A woman.” She’s hilarious and it makes the book hilarious. She reminded me of Dr. Temperance Brennan, or “Bones” from that book/TV series, a character I also love. And any great character, like Elizabeth, needs a great supporting cast, which she has in Mad, Six-Thirty (we even get points-of-view scenes from him trying to protect both), Harriet, who is Elizabeth’s neighbor-turned-friend, and Walter Pine, the program manager who hires and believes in Elizabeth. Inspired, partly one has to think by Elizabeth, Harriet and Walter even get together toward the end of the book after Harriet divorces her sleazeball, loser husband.

The reason Garmus’ book gave me a vibe early-on that her book was going to be good is because Elizabeth is a gigantic character who leaps off the page full of the force and fury and righteousness that Garmus imbues her with, and the writing itself keeps apace with Elizabeth’s steadfastness and determination; it’s whip-smart and fun. Counterintuitively, given the problems with that time, I liked being in that world with Elizabeth because of Elizabeth.

As a scientist, a chemist, and a determined human, Elizabeth constantly asks the world of the 1950s and 1960s, “Why not?” and meets resistance from both men and women, including experiencing sexual assault and harassment, but still, she persists. She does it her way, always. The way Garmus has written her, she’s one of the most easy-to-cheer-for protagonists to come along in fiction in quite some time. You want her to succeed despite the patriarchal times she’s navigating and the obstacles in her way, and quite frankly, you’re confident that she’ll figure out a way through or around the problems. She’s a scientist, after all.

To quote her deceased boyfriend, tomorrow is a new day, and with chemistry, anything is possible. If you’re looking for a new book to give a whirl, then I highly recommend Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry. You won’t soon forget Elizabeth Zott.