Q&A with Lessons in Chemistry Author Bonnie Garmus

This entry was posted on 14 April 2022.

Bonnie Garmus is the author of Lessons in Chemistry, a story of hope
and staying true to yourself with an iconic heroine, the unconventional, uncompromising Chemist, Elizabeth Zott. Bonnies chats here about
her own involvement in science, the whooshing sound a boat makes
and the women she admires.

 


 

ON DOGS IN BOOKS

I’ve always loved dogs and as a child sought out any book that included one: Big Red, Old Yeller, Call of the Wild, Sounder, Ribsy, Travels with Charley, The Incredible Journey, Shiloh, etc. I was an introvert with a very bad stutter; I spent a lot of time with our family dog. Neither of us said much, but I was always certain he’d somehow entered the world from some other faraway portal, and despite our obvious and numerous failings, had agreed to take our family on.

 

I’ve had a few dogs since then and always had that same feeling — that they were willing to spend their much shorter lives with us despite how much we had to learn. Each dog of mine has been entirely different in their own quirky ways; each was the best dog I could ever imagine. Although I think our last, Friday, was the closest I’ll ever get to living with Gandhi. As for my current dog, 99, we suspect she’s not a dog, but a fawn.

 

ON SPORTS

I started wild swimming at a very young age — five. My dad was a strong swimmer and liked to do real distance, meaning miles. I was always very determined to keep up. Lake Tahoe was our favorite destination, but we also swam in higher elevation lakes rimmed with ice. We never wore wetsuits, and because of it, usually ended up with some hypothermia or even afterdrop. The whole thing was pretty much the “Don’t” picture in terms of safety (parenting was different back then), but it did help that my mom was a nurse. While she consistently disapproved of these swims, it was also clear she welcomed any opportunity to perform CPR.

 

I still swim, mostly outdoors, and for any real distance, in a wetsuit. But in winter, I love to swim in skins (as they say here in the UK). There’s no better way to become instantly and rudely awake.

 

Despite being tall, I’m a terrible basketball player, a lackluster volleyball player, and a tragic tennis player. No one runs slower than I do. But I love baseball and when I was about eight, I had to demonstrate how to hit home runs to a bunch of bigger, older Little Leaguers — all boys — who instantly hated my guts. It was mutual.

 

I didn’t discover rowing until I was in my thirties, but once I found it, there was no turning back. Rowing seems to get under people’s skin in a way that other sports don’t. I think it’s a combination of the technical difficulty and physical sacrifice combined with the whooshing sound the boat makes when you’ve all managed to do it right.

 

I realise it probably sounds like I was/am some sort of great athlete, but I wasn’t/am not. I was a detriment to my basketball team, and in high school, a track coach once asked me not to join the team. But swimming, rowing, erging (sort of), and hiking, these are all things I still love to do. Still, I think I love swimming the most. It’s the only sport you get to do laying down.

 


“As the Chinese saying goes, Women hold up half the sky. If it feels like the sky is falling, ask yourself why.”


 

ON SCIENCE

I have a broad sort of layperson’s interest in all science except for Maths, which I hate. I have a special fondness for entomology (insects) because my dad was an entomologist; for anatomy because my mom was a nurse; and animal behaviour because of Jane Goodall. I also have some interest in astrophysics, mostly because my husband was an astrophysics major in college, and I’ve long admired (and feared) the way he can still rattle off facts about black holes in somewhat excruciating detail when all I did was ask, “Hey, did you see the falling star?”

 

My first real job out of college was for scientific publisher Benjamin Cummings as an editorial assistant, then assistant editor, then associate editor. I didn’t go into scientific publishing because it was a calling. I went into it because I lived in Palo Alto. Had I lived in NYC, I would have headed straight for Random House. Nevertheless, there were parts of science publishing I really enjoyed, even if I was always a little shocked that senior editors would assign books or chapters for me to edit or rewrite (“Make it more readable,” they’d say. “But I don’t know anything about geology,” I’d say. “Doesn’t matter,” they’d say.) Let’s just say I had mixed results. Anyway, I later switched careers and went into copywriting.

 

ON FEMINISM

I’m a feminist, although I sometimes use the term “equalist.” So much has been written on feminism that I don’t really feel the need to repeat what science has long-since proven: that women aren’t and never have been inferior. We don’t have smaller brains; we’re not less intelligent. The ship that measured superiority by physical strength sailed eons ago. Today what matters is not how well one can fight, but rather how well one can think. And take a good look at our world … we need all the thinkers we can get.

 

I’ve got a long list of women I admire, but I’ll start with Rosalind Franklin whose X-ray diffractions of DNA led directly to the discovery of the double helix – not that James Watson would ever admit to that. I’m also a big fan of Rosa Parks, the activist; Nellie Bly, the journalist; Gloria Steinem, the feminist; and Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, and in a time that beat every male who’d come before her. Today I admire Greta Thunberg, Malala Yousafzai and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

 

Whether it’s a pandemic or climate change or any of the other disasters headed our way, we must once and for all bury these incredibly outdated notions of what women can and can’t do. We can do anything. But first we (that “we” includes the many enlightened men out there) must stamp out the remaining fear and prejudice that keeps half the world’s population from reaching their potential. I have no idea how we do this except to keep fighting. As the Chinese saying goes, women hold up half the sky. If it feels like the sky is falling, ask yourself why.

 

Bonnie Garmus is the author of Lessons in Chemistry, out now.

 

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Extract: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 


 

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