Bonnie Garmus wrote 'Lessons in Chemistry.' She learned the formula for TV would bring changes
Every woman has had an experience like it— or 50, author Bonnie Garmus ventures. It was 2013 and she was a creative director at an advertising agency in the Bay Area when she, the only woman in a pitch meeting for a major technology campaign, received no feedback for her presentation. Then, as she tells it, one of the vice presidents in the room, a man, essentially regurgitated everything she had just outlined and got full credit for the campaign.
"I put up a fight because I'm not exactly a shrinking violet," she says. "And everyone ignored me. I basically stomped back to my desk. But you know what? It was a really great thing in a way because I was in such a bad mood, that instead of working on the deadline that I was supposed to be working on, I sat down that day, and I wrote the first chapter of 'Lessons in Chemistry.'"
The book follows Elizabeth Zott, a gifted chemist-turned-reluctant TV cooking show sensation who is navigating life as a widowed mother while contending with a sexist 1950s establishment. The emotional thrust of the book didn't need much research. But when it came to the science element, Garmus bought a book on eBay and taught herself basic chemistry from the '50s. "The fire department had to come twice for the amount of flames in my flat. So, I made some mistakes, but once I got into the chemistry, I was so glad I was forcing myself to do this because if I had not done it, I would have never realized chemistry rules us all," she said.
Published in March 2022, a few
