A fabulously well-written debut by Bonnie Garmus, with dry wit and many one-liners which make you sit up, take note and colour if you’re reading on a kindle. I’ve marked way too many. The story of a female scientist, an oddity in the sixties and perhaps even today, and how power still stays firmly a male stranglehold.

Elizabeth, a no-nonsense scientist, is adorable from the word go. Why? Because of her refusal to bow to feminine typecasting, and her utter rejection of the cue cards shown when running a ‘cookery show for housewives’ on tv, spouting chemical compositions, and the interplay of the food she is about to prep, before proceeding to churn out delectable fare.

How can I, a woman myself, not look up to her as a role model? She’s my hero.

It is 1952 and in a fatal chemical combustion, Elizabeth falls for nobel-nominated chemist Calvin Evans, and their love affair becomes the talk of the Hastings Institute, where they both work.

“If relationships are a puzzle, then theirs was solved from the get-go – as if someone shook out the box and watched them from above as each separate piece landed exactly right, slipping on into the other, fully interlocked, into a picture that made perfect sense. They made other couples sick.”

However, this paradisiacal pair is constantly viewed with suspicion and eventually her work is stolen and presented by the boss Donatti.

Rowing figures hugely in this book- a physical routine that binds Calvin and Elizabeth further. Later, when she hosts the tv show, she speaks of rowing to her female viewers, and that has quite an impact! I’m about to go buy myself a rowing machine shortly, inspired as I am by the act of ‘erging’ (designed to mimic the rowing motion that a person creates when in a watercraft but operates on land).

Every character is this delightful book is sketched precisely – progressing with the story: Harriet Sloane, an older neighbour who tells Elisabeth to ‘take a moment’, having found her distraught with a newborn, arrives never to leave her helpless again. Harriet goes from strength to strength in the chemist’s life, forging a relationship with the daughter Madeline– “legally Mad!” and their dog, Six-Thirty. Mason, Elisabeth’s obstetrician and Calvin’s rowing mate, is able to bring the chemist back after birthing a child, to this rigorous activity which lends sanity to her existence.

Ms Flask, the HR person, who’s mean, nasty and jealous and is eventually fired, also turns into a catalyst of irreversible transformation eventually. 

Hope these aren’t spoilers, but every person characterized in the book progresses positively, uh, mostly; none is stagnant, nothing stays as it is. Things get worse before they get better, as is the way of life, is it not! In my experience, it must all appear to go to seed, before a new plant sprouts, astounding us, filling us with wonder at unexpected and positive turns.

Elisabeth and Calvin’s daughter Mad, particularly stands out. She, with her innocence and unerring clarity, spouting truths one might be afraid to hear- how can one not love her and not want to hold a conversation with this tiny pack of sharp wisdom. Wakely, a Reverend, and Mad, forge the most unusual and friendly relationship, which takes off in the library where the child goes seeking to fill up her Family Tree.

The dog, Six-Thirty, is another character that holds your heart-strings and never lets go of them.

Of food she says to Walter Pine, father to Amanda, Mad’s classmate, who goes on to become the catalyst in her TV appearance at ‘Supper at Six’ –

“We both know food is the catalyst that unlocks our brains, binds our families and determines our futures.” How true is that!

Garmus uses Elizabeth to espouse her own love of chemistry which slips in everywhere in this beautiful debut. 

Her mantra echoes on every page: ‘Chemistry is change’.

And as for families, both Calvin and Elizabeth have had their share of deep grief and rejection, “….but while we may be born into families, it doesn’t necessarily mean we belong to them.” No truer words.

“People will always yearn for a simple solution to their complicated problems. It’s a lot easier to have faith in something you can’t see, can’t touch, can’t explain, and can’t change, rather than to have faith in something you actually can.” And, “Physical suffering, he’d long ago learned, bonds people in a way that everyday life can’t.” Bang on.

This is the crux of all of our thinking, isn’t it? Religion lines so much of so much, unwittingly. While many of us are humanists and veer away from religious beliefs, at the end of the day, I know, I turn my eyes upwards, fold my hands and pray quietly to be freed of pain. Helpless in the wake of relentless heart-breaks in its myriad forms- praying comes naturally, and it’s what I’ve seen countless others do.

There is more wisdom packed into this 400-page novel set in the late fifties, early sixties and abysmally, one must take cognizance of the fact that women may still be a long way off from shedding the gender polarity which continues to exist in no small measure.

Garmus is a clever writer, one who has managed to make me both laugh out loud and hold back tears every once in a while, as I almost speed-read this chemically-arousing adventure.

Let me end my review with this quote, which is a thought that arose when Elizabeth studies her daughter Mad’s sketch,

“On the other hand, wasn’t that the very definition of life? Constant adaptations brought about by a series of never-ending mistakes?”

©kamalininatesanJan2023