Elisabeth Zott, the quirky heroine of Bonnie Garmus’ best-selling debut novel, lessons in chemistry (Penguin Random House), will be seen on Apple TV later this year in an eight-episode limited series. Brie Larson (Captain Marvel) will play Elizabeth in the ’60s-set show about a brilliant chemist who is fired from her lab and finds television success with a subversive cookery show.
Although Bonnie wanted to work on the screenplay, given how quickly the rights were bought, her agent told her that she would be too busy with the book to make time for the screenplay. “It’s hard to give your book to someone else. However, I feel great, just getting to know Susannah Grant, who wrote Erin Brockovichis the main scriptwriter,” says Boney over a video call from London.
minor to major
Elizabeth begins her life as a minor character in a book written by Bonnie. After a dreadful day at work, as she sat at her desk, the author felt Elizabeth Zott return. “She was sitting there saying, ‘You seem to have had a bad day, well, not compared to mine.’ That’s 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. Bonnie laughs, “That’s the only character in the book that’s based on a real existence, My Dog, Friday.” Friday, who was adopted from a shelter at the urging of her children, turned out to be an incredibly clever dog. “What was unusual was how many words he picked up from us.” Despite not teaching Friday an extensive vocabulary, Bonnie says she knew a fair number of English words and some German when the family was in Switzerland.
“I read an article about a dog named Chaser the new York Times who knows over 1000 words,” she says, which compares well with Six-Thirty’s knowledge of 627 words.
“He would be in a scene and I would write his point of view, and I realized I wanted an animal to comment on the human race, how many bad decisions we make, and the stupid things we do.”
She also wanted the commentary to be from a character who loves us unconditionally. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. “There are more Six-Thirty fans out here than anything else,” laughs Bonnie.
perspective matters
lessons in chemistry tells the story of Elizabeth, which is met with sexism in many forms. “She wants to be something she’s been told she can’t be. She refuses to accept the reasons why she can’t be.” Can do
“She didn’t have the choices other people had. She wasn’t part of a society that was constantly saying ‘no’ to her. She was studying in a library and there’s no one to say ‘no’ to you.” Elizabeth left out the whole social context of growing up. “That caused him some trouble (laughs). He didn’t see any logic in accepting the myth that society puts forth and tells us to believe.
book cover
accept a limit
Elizabeth also brings up her daughter, Madeline, by her own rules. “I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to be raised by a mother who accepts no boundaries for anyone, not her dog and certainly not her child or her neighbor. She knows from her own experience that accepting limits means 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 knows this child won’t fit into a logical program. As a scientist, Elizabeth realizes, this is an experiment she has to see unfold ”
setting in the 60s
Bonnie says there are two reasons for setting the novel in the 60s. “One was I still experienced a lot of sexism at work. When I went to meetings, I was often the only woman in the room. It was amazing to sit in these high-level executive meetings and hear what people wanted. It occurred to me that it was a problem that there weren’t more women advocating a different point of view.
He thought things should have moved on from the 60s. “Things have gotten 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 single mother. “It gave me a great opportunity to look back and realize the kind of limitations she was living under. His work was rejected. She was an average housewife. I realized how trivial this must have been for women of that generation.
when she reads again the feminine mystique (1963) by Betty Friedan, the author felt that that particular generation of women was deeply depressed. “He was not allowed to do anything other than wash the dishes. For some very promising women, not having the opportunity to do anything else was devastating.
period piece
Google is one of the biggest pros at writing a book set at any other time. “The cons are that it’s easy to present chronological details in the book, especially with science. I couldn’t google the chemistry in the book because it had to be restricted to between 1952 and 1963. I linked to the textbook Was (laughs).
Boney says that the chemistry was a bit difficult at first. “I got into it. I started doing some experiments at home and some didn’t work out.” The fire department arrived and Bonnie didn’t even have a fire extinguisher. “I got one after my first use,” she assured.
logical path
Putting chemistry and cooking together seemed a logical path for Boney. “I knew that I wanted Elizabeth to be on television and I also knew that I wanted her to have a career where she was not accepted, so it had to be science.” Chemistry and cooking are inextricably linked. “Anytime you add heat to something you are initiating a chemical reaction.”
She says that in the 60s a woman had to be beautiful on television. “On television, she had two options. She could say ‘Darwaja number three ke peechey kya hai’ or she could do the show at home. For me it was right to make it a cooking show.”
time travel
The Marvelous Mrs. MaiselSet in the late 50s and early 60s. Mad ManTwo episodes of which Bonnie watched (“I worked in advertising and I didn’t want to go home and watch a show about work”) are set between the 1960s and 1970s.
“I don’t know why people look back on that era so much, except that the ’60s were so important. It was the time when all the great music started coming in… everything was just on the horizon. It just started It was happening. It was an age that everyone thought was so great, says Garmus. “It wasn’t so great for women.”
speech in the form of stories
The writer says that there is no time limit to start writing. “I have been writing professionally for 30 years. As a copywriter, I’ve probably written 100 books by now. A ton of experience has come with me in how you talk to an audience. ,
Discourses, which are methods of storytelling, according to Boni, are a good preparation for a novel. “It was important that everything I wrote was true, which can be difficult in advertising. Sometimes a client goes in, you can say we’re the best. I’d tell them, ‘I’m not going to do that. But I can tell you a story about your product which is true.’ How well the story is told will determine how well that product does.