Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s an interesting one this because I did like it and I did enjoy it but also I found some strange stickiness about certain parts of it. Let’s start with the good stuff. Elizabeth Zott persists despite everything the world has to throw at her and this, in 1960s America, is a lot. She is a woman out of time, a scientist unable to carry out her research, a genius level intellect who has to deal with sexual innuendo, attempted assault, every sort of disparagement under the sun, because of her gender and the world’s inability to cope with who and what she is. Circumstances circumstance and ultimately, she comes to present a cookery show on television. It is ferociously popular and comes to be transformative for viewers (and indeed, the presenter).

There’s a lot of energy in this book and that’s always a curious thing. Garmus is a deft and confident writer and this is palpably good, purposeful work and that energy does really pull you through the pages. It’s fiercely open, very distinct in tone and texture, and incredibly comfortable in what it says and how it says it. It feels like it’s not taken much work at all but I suspect that it’s rather the opposite: this book is very carefully and very deliberately put together and this has taken a lot of work and I appreciate what Garmus has done here, very much.

Yet that energy, that energy. When there’s so much of it, and it’s so charged and full of texture and craft, there’s always going to be difficulty in sticking the landing, so to speak. For me, the ending didn’t quite work, and I found myself thinking about how much things like hindsight and perspective plays in books like this. Lessons In Chemistry benefits very much from being written when it is written but there’s also something a bit sticky about how that hindsight interacts with the situation of the time and how it interacts with the agency and powers of the people who were there (and how it can, perhaps, also work to erase those agencies and powers). I don’t know if I’m being clear, I rather suspect I’m not. I’m trying to figure it out as we speak. I just think there’s something wider here to unpick and figure out about writing historical work and the role that power and perspective play in that process and it’s something that reaches wider than this book, for sure.

Anyway. I really did like this and every now and then I liked it a lot. I think you should read it. It does something different which is in itself something to be remarked upon and valued; it’s hard to go somewhere new in fiction because somebody, most likely, will have already explored a similar pattern or rhythm in their own work (note: the exciting work comes, I think, when you recognise this and acknowledge this legacy but still tell your own story regardless). One of the best characters is a dog (yes, more of this please publishing, yes). It’s confidently told, often very funny, and I think that when everything aligns, it’s kind of delicious, even with that difficult uneasiness underneath it all. This really is a provocative thing.

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