Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 Think back to your earliest memories of TV housewives.  Can’t you just see June Cleaver in her shirt waist dress and pearls setting the table for dinner? This picture was a normal family snapshot and all little girls were told as they grew up that their home should be just like this—we were to stay in the home, be happy housewives and raise the children.  Bonnie Garmus in her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry, chucked that notion out the window for her main character Elizabeth Zott.  Brilliant and independent, Elizabeth was determined not be pigeoned holed into the patriarchal norm.  She spent her entire life fighting for her place in the world of renowned chemists.  Fighting the status quo and succeeding were two different things however, and faced with the reality of being a single mother who needed to support her child, Elizabeth acquiesced to taking a job as a TV cooking show hostess.  But “Supper at Six” was not your typical cooking show.  Elizabeth insisted on treating the women who watched her show as adults with actual brains.  Women were not inferior and Zott was determined to prove it. This revolt against the repressive role of women became the storyline of the book and revolved in and around all the people who shared life with Elizabeth.  Some characters were charming in very quirky ways and others depicted the ugliest types of chauvinistic back stabbers. Garmus treated us to a wonderful cast of characters such as Elizabeth’s daughter, Mad, her much harangued boss, Walter, her scrappy neighbor, Harriet, and most fun of all, Six Thirty, the family dog with a vocabulary of over 900 words.  All of the characters moved us to a nearly perfect outcome for Elizabeth and family.  This was just a wonderful read that I cannot recommend  highly enough. Garmus has given us a truly warm and entertaining book. I rarely think of rereading a novel, but this is one I might read again.  Just delightful.