Lessons in Chemistry
By Bonnie Garmus
- Genre
- Literary Fiction
- Publisher
- Doubleday
- Publication year
- 2022
- ISBN
- 9780385547345
Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus's debut, follows Elizabeth Zott, a gifted chemist in early-1960s California barred from a scientific career by the sexism of the age. Improbably, she becomes the host of a popular television cooking show, teaching her audience chemistry and self-respect. It...
Denied a laboratory career by the casual sexism of early-1960s America, chemist Elizabeth Zott ends up, of all places, hosting a daytime cooking show - and quietly turning it into a course in chemistry and self-respect. Bonnie Garmus's runaway debut wears its anger lightly, delivering social critique inside a briskly funny, warmly peopled crowd-pleaser. Elizabeth is a deliberately uncompromising heroine, literal-minded and principled to a fault, and the novel draws both comedy and pathos from a world not remotely ready for her. Purists may note that the period is rendered with a distinctly modern sensibility; the pleasures on offer are those of the feel-good novel done with real craft - sharp dialogue, a scene-stealing dog, a cast to root for. Beneath the charm sits a serious argument about talent wasted by prejudice and the slow work of changing minds. Enormously popular for good reason, it is that unusual thing: a book-club favorite with teeth, optimistic without being naive about what it costs a woman to insist on her own worth.