Garmus, Bonnie. Lessons in Chemistry. New York: Doubleday 2022. Print.
Back in 1961, when women wore shirtwaist dresses and joined garden clubs and drove legions of children around in seatbeltless cars without giving it a second thought; back before anyone knew there'd even be a sixties movement, much less one that its participants would spend the next sixty years chronicling; back when the big wars were over and the secret wars had just begun and people were starting to think fresh and believe everything was possible, the thirty-year-old mother of Madeline Zott rose before dawn every morning and felt certain of just one thing: her life was over.Despite that certainty, she made her way to the lab to pack her daughter's lunch.
Description:
Elizabeth Zott, the main character of the novel, is a scientist, first and foremost, working as a researcher in 1961, a time when women scientists were few and those in the profession were generally delegated to bringing coffee to men scientists. This role would never do for Elizabeth Zott, a powerfully-driven woman who demands the same facilities, pay, responsibilities, and respect as her fellow (men) workers routinely receive.
She is the mother of the precocious Madeline, who "had been reading since age three and now, at age five, was already through most of Dickens". Madeline despertely wants to fit in with the other students, so tosses away her mother's daily inspirational lunchbox notes ("Play sports at recess but do not automatically let the boys win"). She trades her nutritionally balanced, but odd, food as well so as not appear any stranger. She was just starting kindergarden, so what could go wrong with this strategy?
The other day [Harriet] suggested they make mud pies and Madeline frowned, then wrote 3.1415 with a stick in the dirt. "Done," she said.
Elizabeth deals with her own chemical research doggedly, but with little encouragement. Her boss steals her research papers and publishes them under his own name. Her lab equipment is reduced and her chances of promotion ignored.
Her grudges were mainly reserved for a patriarchal society founded on the idea that women were less. Less capable. Less intelligent. Less inventive. A society that believe men went to work and did important things---discovered planets, developed products, created laws---and women stayed at home and raised children.
That
environment all changes, for better and for worse, when she sneaks into five-star
researcher Calvin Evans' lab and steals some of his beakers. Soon, they become a couple.
They were more than friends, more than confidants, more than allies, and more than lovers. If relationships are a puzzle, then theirs was solved from the get-go---as if someone shook out the box and watched from above as each separate piece landed exactly right, slipping one into the other, fully interlocked, into a picture that made perfect sense. They made other couples sick.
Inevitably, (not really a spoiler since it is mentioned on the first page), Elizabeth Zott moves out of her lab. She is coerced into hosting a TV cooking show based on science and respect for women who cook for their families. While it is unlike any show and goes against the expressed ideas of the station manager, Supper at Six becomes a huge hit.
But Elizabeth Zott is miserable. And always, there are the challenges of childrearing as a single parent.
Every day she found parenthood like taking a test for which she had not studied. The questions were daunting and there wasn't nearly enough multiple choice. Occasionally she woke up damp with sweat, having imagined a knock at the door and some sort of authority figure with an empty baby-sized basket saying, "We've just reviewed your last parental performance report and there's really no nice way to put this. You're fired."
I cannot give away any more. All I have mentioned happens in the first chapters, so there is a lot of ground to cover in this off-beat novel of a women fighting to do what she is trained to do and for what she knows is right, a woman who faces obstacles and antagonists in every corner. And there's still more in this captivating story about rowing, cooking, and a dog named Six-Thirty who is trained to understand hundreds of words.
My highest recommended as a thought-provoking, highly enjoyable look into the 1960's era from the eyes and words of a whipsmart woman.
Happy reading.
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
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