‘Chemistry’ offers a life lesson we should all embrace
(Nov. 6, 2024) — I am excited to recommend the wonderfully moving, insightful and hysterically laugh-out-loud novel “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus.
For all you female readers who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, this novel is a must read. And for all you daughters and granddaughters who want to know what it was like for your moms and grandmas, don’t pass up “Lessons in Chemistry.”
For everybody else, no matter your age or sex, and if you’ve missed learning by laughter, then “Lessons in Chemistry” is a must-read for you, too.
Elizabeth Zott is the protagonist, a young chemistry major at UCLA at a time when women were still not welcome in many male-dominated professions, especially the sciences. “Lessons in Chemistry” is Zott’s story of her fall from grace (for not playing the expected sexual games), preventing her from studying for her PhD.
She is a gutsy, determined woman and takes the setback by getting a job as a lowly lab technician at a prestigious research institute whose major researcher is a young, highly recognized chemist, Calvin Evans. Chemistry plays its part in bringing Elizabeth and Calvin together.
Sad and mysterious backgrounds
Calvin is the first man in Elizabeth’s life who respects her mind and her ambition. Both have sad and mysterious backgrounds, which add to the depth of their determination to succeed in life. They are soon an item at the prestigious research institute, but neither chemist desires marriage. Instead, they happily share a life together: an unacceptable choice in those times.
This bright and loving couple adopt a homeless dog in lieu of children, becoming a family of three. Then life bears down, and Calvin dies in a ridiculous accident while walking the dog. Back at work, the institute’s director attacks Elizabeth; Calvin’s work is stolen; a paper Elizabeth wrote is published under the director’s name; and finally, Elizabeth discovers she is pregnant and is immediately fired.
And this is a funny novel? Trust me, Garmus uncovers with biting and often slapstick humor the reality of what women went through in those male-dominated, misogynist years. Even when Elizabeth becomes the star of an afternoon TV show, “Dinner at Six,” based on the chemistry found in cooking, she suffers under the disapproving weight as an unmarried mother. Calvin and Elizabeth’s extraordinarily precocious daughter bears the burden of illegitimacy while attempting to fit into a school system with no room for the gifted child.
Tough subjects
The book’s topics include religious hypocrisy, institutional financial fraud, plagiarism, adoption bureaucracy, TV programming and production, male superiority, female body imaging, grudge holding, spousal abuse, misogyny at all levels of education, privacy vs. secrets, parenting, loving, forgiveness and families not dependent on bloodlines.
I have a feeling that laughter is a restorative chemical in the face of these topics. Just in case I missed it, I plan to reread “Lessons in Chemistry” as well as rewatch the TV series. Laughter should never be in short supply.
Visit Sunny Solomon’s website at bookinwithsunny.com for her latest recommendations or just to ‘talk books.’
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Sunny Solomon
Sunny Solomon holds an MA in English/Creative Writing, San Francisco State University. She is a book reviewer for “The Clayton Pioneer” and her poetry and other writing has been published in literary journals, one chapbook, In the Company of Hope and the collection, Six Poets Sixty-six Poems. She was the happy manager of Bonanza Books, Clayton, CA and Clayton Books, Clayton, CA. She continues to moderate a thriving book club that survived the closure of the store from which it began. Sunny currently lives next to the Truckee in Reno, NV.