Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is a great example of a character-driven story. The main character, Elizabeth Zott, is a strong-minded woman who combines the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt with Olive Kitteridge of Elizabeth Strout’s novel of the same name and Beth Harmon in Walter Trevis’s The Queen’s Gambit. Faced with situations common for professional women in mid-20th century America, Zott responds in ways uncharacteristic of her time and consistent with her no-nonsense view of life.
Along the way, the author throws in ironic commentary consistent with Elizabeth’s character. These throw-away comments are often hilarious, particularly when they highlight the everyday discriminatory practices against women which seem so dated from this distance in time.
Elizabeth Zott is a research chemist who becomes the successful star of a television cooking show in the early 1960s. She uses the show to instruct the housewives of America in the basics of chemistry as they prepare ‘supper at six’. At the same time, Zott prompts her viewers to question their status in society, pre-empting the women’s liberation movement by several years. She ends each episode by instructing children to set the table because their mothers need a moment for themselves, an exhortation prompted by her own experience of motherhood.
The novel tells the story of the unravelling of Elizabeth’s professional and personal life despite her potentially ground-breaking research in chemistry and her happy partnership with Calvin Evans, another brilliant research chemist and fascinating character. Zott responds to all setbacks positively, finding novel ways to continue her chemistry experiments and raise her daughter.
For me, the main source of enjoyment in Lessons in Chemistry was following the thoughts and actions of Elizabeth Zott. She comes up with some marvellous put-downs of men who are trying to keep her in her place. The pace of the novel is another source of pleasure. Particularly in the first chapters, the story gallops along as Bonnie Garmus relates events in Elizabeth’s life in a series of short scenes in which the dialogue sparkles with wit.
Lessons in Chemistry will appeal to many readers but particularly women who lived through the 1960s themselves. They will recognise many of the situations Elizabeth Zott experiences and wish they had the presence of mind at the time to respond as Zott does in this highly entertaining novel.
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I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and can certainly relate to the workplace culture of the time. Brilliantly portrayed with such humour and accuracy!
I agree with your comments on the workplace scenes, Di. It’s very close to the bone for many of us I think. The humour makes it all the more effective as a comment on the times, then and now.