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.

My Review

I must just first say that my favourite character is Elizabeth’s dog whom she calls Six-Thirty. He was a stray but he is very clever and empathic and he knows 103 words, though by the end the count has gone up to 981. Elizabeth talks to him like a child, reading him stories, while he talks to the dead in the cemetery and the unborn ‘creature’. According to Six-Thirty, ‘maybe it worked; maybe it didn’t.’ ‘It’s me, Six-Thirty. I’m the dog,‘ he says. I just love him.

Elizabeth is a one-off. Apart from confiding in her dog, she doesn’t care what others think of her, except when they accuse her of not being a true scientist because she’s a woman. She’s also a pain in the neck. She could be Aspergers, definitely neurodivergent, though there are many readers who don’t like that label.

Another criticism is that it’s like taking a woman from today and time-travelling her back to the 50s and 60s. I disagree. I expect lots of women felt the same at the time – they just didn’t get the chance to shout about it, let alone on a TV show called Supper at Six. It’s a cooking show that should’ve been a disaster with Elizabeth at the helm, but women love it. It gives them power. Walter Pine is permanently terrified that it will all blow up in his face.

Into this strange mix we also have Elizabeth’s daughter Madeline, a precocious genius, (she’s illegitimate – shock horror – as Elizabeth and Calvin never married), Rev Wakeley who was Calvin’s pen-pal until Calvin told him he HATED HIS FATHER AND WISHED HE WOULD DIE, neighbour Harriet Sloane, whose husband is a pervert and a slob, and a variety of male chemists at Hastings, determined to put her down.

Everything about this book is a bit bonkers (I love a bit bonkers), from a chemist turned cookery show host, to a daughter who reads The Sound and the Fury at age six and a huge, ugly (beauty is in the eye of the beholder) dog with human characteristics – he picks up Mad from school and takes her to the library.

I almost didn’t read Lessons in Chemistry. I admit I was put off by the beginning – her experience wasn’t remotely funny – but I persevered and was well rewarded. By the end it had become one of my favourite books of the year.

About the Author

Bonnie Garmus is a copywriter and creative director who has worked for a wide range of clients, in the US and abroad, focusing primarily on technology, medicine, and education. She’s an open water swimmer, a rower, and mother to two pretty amazing daughters. Most recently from Seattle, she currently lives in London with her husband and her dog, 99.