Bonnie Garmus on ‘Lessons in Chemistry’: ‘Chemistry and cooking are inextricably attached to each other’ 

Elizabeth Zott, the quirky protagonist of Bonnie Garmus’ bestselling debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry (Penguin Random House), will be seen in an eight-episode limited series on Apple TV later this year. Brie Larson, (Captain Marvel) will play Elizabeth in the show set in the 60s, about a brilliant chemist who is fired from her lab and finds success on television with a subversive cookery show.

Though Bonnie wanted to work on the screenplay, considering how quickly the rights were bought, her agent told her she would be much too busy with the book to have time for the screenplay. “It is hard to give your book over to someone else. I feel a lot better, however, just knowing Susannah Grant, who wrote Erin Brockovich, is the main screenwriter,” says Bonnie over a video call from London.

Minor to major

Elizabeth began life as a minor character in a book Bonnie was writing. After a terrible day at work, when she sat at her desk, the author felt like Elizabeth Zott was back. “She was sitting there saying, ‘you think you have had a bad day, well, not compared to mine.’ That is when I started her story. I wrote the first chapter of Lessons in Chemistry right then.”

Elizabeth’s dog, Six-Thirty, is as unconventional as her. “That is the only character in the book based on a real being, my dog, Friday,” Bonnie says with a laugh. Friday, who was adopted from a shelter on the insistence of her children, turned out to be an incredibly clever dog. “What was unusual was how many words she picked up from us.” Despite not teaching Friday an extensive vocabulary, Friday, Bonnie says, knew a fair number of English words and some German too when the family was in Switzerland.

“I read an article about a dog called Chaser in The New York Times who knew over 1000 words,” she says, which compares well with Six-Thirty’s knowledge of 627 words.

“He’d be in a scene and I’d write his point of view, and I realised that I wanted to have an animal commenting on the human race, how many bad decisions we make, and stupid things we do.”

She also wanted the commentary to be from a character who loves us unconditionally. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “There are more Six-Thirty fans than anything,” Bonnie says with a laugh.

Perspective matters

Lessons in Chemistry tells the story of Elizabeth, who meets sexism in many forms. “She wants to be something that she has been told she cannot be. She refuses to accept the reasons why she can’t be that.” A part of the reason why she can do that is because Elizabeth is self educated, Bonnie says.

“She didn’t have options that other people had. She wasn’t part of the society that was constantly saying ‘no’ to her. She was in a library reading and where there is no one to say ‘no’ to you.” Elizabeth skipped the whole social context of growing up. “This caused her some problems (laughs). She saw no logic in accepting the myth that society puts forth and asks us to believe in.”

The book cover

Accept no limits

Elizabeth brings up her daughter, Madeline, also by her own rules. “I was thinking about what it would be like to be raised by a mother who accepts no limits for anyone, not her dog and certainly not for her child, or her neighbour. She knows from her own experience, that accepting limits means that you’ve accepted someone else’s view of the world.”

Being rational and logical, Elizabeth refuses to accept things that are neither. “Madeline has her completely confused because she realises this child will not fit into a logical schedule. As a scientist, Elizabeth realizes, this is an experiment that she has to watch unfold.”

Setting in the ‘60s

There are two reasons for setting the novel in the ‘60s, Bonnie says. “One was I was still experiencing a lot of sexism at work. When I would go to a meeting, I was often the only woman in the room. It was surprising to sit in these high-level executive meetings and listen to what they thought people wanted. It occurred to me that it was a problem that there weren’t more women there, advocating a different point of view.”

She thought things should have progressed since the 60s. “Things have got better for women, but not nearly enough.” Bonnie also decided to set the book in the ‘60s because that was when her mother was a mom. “It gave me a great chance to look back and realise what kind of limits that she had been living under. Her work was dismissed. She was an average housewife. I realized how belittling that must have been for that generation of women.”

When she reread The Feminine Mystique (1963) by Betty Friedan, the author realised that that particular generation of women was horribly depressed. “They were never allowed to do anything other than wash dishes. For some very bright women, having no opportunity to do anything else was devastating.”

Period piece

Google is one of the biggest pros to writing a book set in another time. “The cons are that it is easy to introduce anachronistic details into the book, especially with science. I could not Google the chemistry in the book because it had to be confined between 1952 and 1963. I had stick to the textbook (laughs).

The chemistry, Bonnie says was a little tough at first. “I got into it. I started doing some experiments at home and some did not go well.” The fire department came and Bonnie did not even have a fire extinguisher. “I did get one after my first experiment,” she assures.  

Logical path

Putting chemistry and cooking together, was a logical path for Bonnie. “I knew I wanted Elizabeth to be on television and I also knew that I wanted her to have a career where she would not be accepted, so that had to be science.” Chemistry and cooking are inextricably attached to each other. “Whenever you add heat to something you’re starting a chemical interaction.”

Back in the ‘60s, a woman on television had to be beautiful, she says. “On television, she had two choices. She could say ‘here’s what’s behind door number three’ or she could have a home show. It made sense for me to make it a cooking show.”

Time travel

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which Bonnie does not care for too much, is set in the late 50s and early 60s. Mad Men, which Bonnie watched two episodes of (“I worked in advertising and I didn’t want to go home and watch a show about work”) is set between 1960 and 1970.

“I don’t know why people are looking back to that era so much, except that the ‘60s were so pivotal. It was the time when all the great music started coming in… everything is just on the horizon. It’s just starting.” It was an age, Garmus says which everyone thought was so great. “It wasn’t so great for women.”

Speeches as stories

There is no time limit to begin writing, says the writer. “I’ve been writing professionally for 30 years. As a copywriter, I’ve probably written 100 books by now. I brought a ton of experience of how you talk to an audience.”

Speeches, which are storytelling methods, according to Bonnie is a good preparation for a novel. “It was important that whatever I wrote about was true, which might be difficult in advertising. Sometimes a client will go, you could say we’re the best. I would tell them, ‘I am not going to do that, but I can tell a story about your product that is true.’ How well the story is told will determine how well that product does.”