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Summary
Summary
#1 GLOBAL BESTSELLER WITH MORE THAN 6 MILLION COPIES SOLD * Meet Elizabeth Zott: "a gifted research chemist, absurdly self-assured and immune to social convention" ( The Washington Post ) in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show. * STREAM ON APPLE TV+
This novel is "irresistible, satisfying and full of fuel" ( The New York Times Book Review ) and "witty, sometimes hilarious...the Catch-22 of early feminism" (Stephen King, via Twitter).
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Oprah Daily, Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with--of all things--her mind. True chemistry results.
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six . Elizabeth's unusual approach to cooking ("combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride") proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn't just teaching women to cook. She's daring them to change the status quo.
Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Garmus debuts with a perplexing feminist fairy tale set in 1960s Southern California. Plucky chemist Elizabeth Zott believes she's not like other women ("Most of the women she'd met in college claimed they were only there to get their MRS," Garmus writes. "It was disconcerting, as if they'd all drunk something that had rendered them temporarily insane"). She proceeds to fall madly in love with her colleague, have his child, and then, after being sidelined by double standards, sexual harassment, and scandal around her pregnancy, she's dismissed from her job and becomes an overnight sensation as the host of a daytime cooking show. This trajectory, and its few tragedies, are intermittently interrupted by the anthropomorphized thoughts of her dog, Six-Thirty: "Humans were strange, Six-Thirty thought, the way they constantly battled dirt in their aboveground world, but after death willingly entombed themselves in it." In the end, everything works out--not because the patriarchy is destroyed or fairness is achieved, but thanks to the favors of a rich female benefactor equipped to strike back at those who humiliated Zott. While the scenes of Zott hosting her show do have their charm, the overall effect is about as deep as a Hallmark card. The author has a great voice, but contemporary readers will be left wondering who this is for. Agent: Jennifer Joel, ICM. (April.)
Guardian Review
Every now and again, a first novel appears in a flurry of hype and big-name TV deals, and before the end of the first chapter you do a little air-punch because for once it's all completely justified. Lessons in Chemistry, by former copywriter Bonnie Garmus, is that rare beast; a polished, funny, thought-provoking story, wearing its research lightly but confidently, and with sentences so stylishly turned it's hard to believe it's a debut. Since the success of The Queen's Gambit and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, there's been a renewed interest in stories of pioneering women fighting to prove themselves in traditionally male arenas in the years - late 50s and early 60s - before second-wave feminism took off. Elizabeth Zott, the heroine of Lessons in Chemistry, follows firmly in their footsteps; the book also nods to the rediscovery of TV chef Julia Child as a trailblazer, and even echoes Breaking Bad's Walter White in Elizabeth's mantra: "Chemistry is change." As the novel opens in 1961, Elizabeth is a 30-year-old single mother and the reluctant, "permanently depressed" star of a cooking show for housewives called Supper at Six. By training she is a research chemist, though her academic career has foundered despite her obvious talent, and as the narrative jumps back 10 years we understand why. Female scientists are viewed with suspicion by their male colleagues; from her earliest undergraduate days, Elizabeth has been subject to attacks on her reputation and her person, from the major - sexual assault and theft of her work - to the casual everyday misogyny meted out by people, including other women, who see her independence and single-mindedness as a threat. Even when she finds her soulmate, Nobel-nominated chemist Calvin Evans, their happiness is a further spur to jealous rivals and doomed not to last. Though she takes the TV gig to pay the bills after being fired from her research institute, Elizabeth initiates a quiet revolution, using her platform to speak directly to millions of housewives about their own capacity for change. Garmus's great skill here is to create a richly comic novel around a character who is entirely deadpan, and to whom some pretty dreadful things happen: "She'd been defined not by what she did, but by what others had done." The comedy exists in the gap between Elizabeth's calm but dogged refusal to be anything less than herself, and the determination of those around her to squeeze her into an acceptable mould. There are, inevitably, a few first-novel flaws: the narrative perspective hops around too often, dallying with minor characters when its strength is in Elizabeth's inner life. There's a semi-magic-realist strand from the viewpoint of Elizabeth's unnaturally perceptive dog, which some readers may find charming and quirky and others somewhat grating. But Garmus understands the importance of a satisfying resolution; if her revenge comedy relies a little too heavily on coincidence, that's all part of the larger-than-life, Technicolor world she has created. It's easy to see how fluently the story will translate to the screen, but the real pleasure of the novel is in the dry wit of Garmus's writing.
Kirkus Review
Two chemists with major chemistry, a dog with a big vocabulary, and a popular cooking show are among the elements of this unusual compound. At the dawn of the 1960s, Elizabeth Zott finds herself in an unexpected position. She's the star of a television program called Supper at Six that has taken American housewives by storm, but it's certainly not what the crass station head envisions: " 'Meaningful?' Phil snapped. 'What are you? Amish? As for nutritious: no. You're killing the show before it even gets started. Look, Walter, it's easy. Tight dresses, suggestive movements...then there's the cocktail she mixes at the end of every show.' " Elizabeth is a chemist, recently forced to leave the lab where she was doing important research due to an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Now she's reduced to explaining things like when to put the steak in the pan. "Be sure and wait until the butter foams. Foam indicates that the butter's water content has boiled away. This is critical. Because now the steak can cook in lipids rather than absorb H2O." If ever a woman was capable of running her own life, it's Elizabeth. But because it's the 1950s, then the '60s, men have their sweaty paws all over both her successes and failures. On the plus side, there's Calvin Evans, world-famous chemist, love of her life, and father of her child; also Walter Pine, her friend who works in television; and a journalist who at least tries to do the right thing. At the other pole is a writhing pile of sexists, liars, rapists, dopes, and arrogant assholes. This is the kind of book that has a long-buried secret at a corrupt orphanage with a mysterious benefactor as well as an extremely intelligent dog named Six-Thirty, recently retired from the military. ("Not only could he never seem to sniff out the bomb in time, but he also had to endure the praise heaped upon the smug German shepherds who always did.") Garmus' energetic debut also features an invigorating subplot about rowing. A more adorable plea for rationalism and gender equality would be hard to find. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Cooking is chemistry. When Elizabeth Zott enters a relationship with the brilliant Calvin Evans, she cooks him meals in exchange for sharing his home. They are both scientists at a California research institute in the 1960s, and although she has to fight for basic supplies like beakers, he is celebrated for the funding his work generates. When their relationship is tragically cut short, she turns to cooking and lands a job as the chef of a television show, allowing her to support her daughter, Madeline. Stymied in her scientific career by the misogynistic attitudes of her colleagues, Elizabeth nevertheless persists in this unflinching examination of the hurdles women of the era had to overcome to be valued similarly to men in the workplace. With the help of a forthright neighbor, a loyal TV producer, and an astute dog, Elizabeth forges a path that includes an unexpected hobby as a rower and her no-nonsense cooking show, in which she draws on her knowledge of chemistry. Indefatigable and formidable, Elizabeth pushes the bounds of how women and their work are perceived in this thoroughly engaging debut novel.
Library Journal Review
Miranda Raison delivers a spirited performance of Garmus's inventive debut novel. A copywriter and creative director by trade, Garmus has crafted an inspiring protagonist in the brilliant, uncompromising Elizabeth Zott, a chemist facing extreme misogyny in the 1950s and '60s. After surviving a harrowing sexual assault that ruined her chance at an organic chemistry PhD, Zott takes her UCLA master's degree and accepts a job at nearby Hastings Research Institute, where she falls in love with the equally driven Calvin Evans, a Nobel Prize--nominated scientist. After enduring another personal tragedy and more harassment, Zott leaves the Institute to host the local TV show Supper at Six in which she shows respect for her homemaker viewers by focusing on the chemistry behind cooking and nutrition. Absolutely fabulous as Chef Zott, Raison also wonderfully portrays Garmus's delightful cast of secondary characters, which include a budding feminist neighbor and an extremely intelligent dog. VERDICT Sparkling with humor and tragedy, sharp prose, underdog heroes, evil villains, and a mostly happy ending, this must-have title is a Good Morning America Book Club selection and forthcoming Apple TV series. Includes an author interview.--Beth Farrell