Life sciences

Bonnie Garmus explores gender equality in her debut novel

While it’s unusual for a debut novel to be involved in a publishers’ bidding war, that’s exactly what happened with Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry. As a result, the book is being translated into 35 languages, and Apple Studios has secured the rights to produce an eight-episode series.

Set in the late 1950s and early ’60s, Lessons in Chemistry features the uncompromising, brave and brilliant scientist and single mother Elizabeth Zott, who becomes the reluctant star of a TV cooking show and inspires housewives across America to change their lives. The writing is humorous and touching, with themes of gender inequality and sexual harassment that are still relevant today.

“Things are better for women today, but they’re not great,” Garmus says from her home in London. “I have two daughters [27 and 29 years old], and the idea that they’re still facing lower pay and fewer opportunities [than men] and the same kind of harassment ... I felt compelled to write about it.”

“But I should say that I based the story on my mother’s generation, because there were a lot of unhappy women who never got to do what they were put on earth to do. For me the book is kind of a salute to those who were dismissively called ‘average housewives.’ ”

Garmus, who grew up mainly in California but has lived in various places, including Colombia, Switzerland and now the UK, dedicated Lessons in Chemistry to her mother. “My mother was very smart. She had been a nurse and then she stayed home to raise four children, but she never forgot nursing. And so when the last of us went away to university she went straight back to school, renewed her qualification and returned to nursing. That was an inspiration to me,” she says.

Garmus herself “always wanted to write books” but instead worked as a science editor after graduating from the University of California Santa Cruz with a degree in aesthetic studies. Several years later she gained another degree—this time in graphic design —and then launched her own copywriting business, which she ran for about 25 years.

“The business turned out to be incredibly successful,” she says, “but I never stopped wanting to write books, and, after a bad day at work, I sat down and realized that there was someone sitting there with me.” The imaginary figure was Elizabeth Zott, a minor character from the first book Garmus had started 15 years earlier. Garmus took it as a sign to write more about Zott, so she did, spending the next seven years on Lessons in Chemistry while still working full-time in her business. “I got up really early!” she explains. “I’m a rower, and the mornings I wasn’t rowing I would write from 4:30 to 8:30.”

Garmus, a Costco member, is now a full-time author and is currently reworking a novel she penned years ago—a novel that received 98 rejections from publishers. “It was too long,” she admits, “but I think it’s a strong book, and I hope I can rewrite it in such a way that the publishers like it.”

Meanwhile, Costco members can find out for themselves why Lessons in Chemistry has become a literary sensation.

---