Holding Yourself Accountable: Lessons on Acceptable Workplace Behavior From Garmus' "Lessons in Chemistry"

This is part of a series of book reviews by Mayer Brown chair Jon Van Gorp, whose reading informs his perspective as a lawyer and leader of a global law firm and helps him draw insight from unexpected sources.

I get a lot of book recommendations. Often the titles fit into the category of professional self-improvement: how to be a better decision maker, how to use time wisely, how to build relationships, both personal and professional. And I like these books because they push readers to focus on simple steps that, if applied with discipline, can help be better at our jobs and in our professional relationships. Others deal with cultural and sociological challenges such as the attention-deficit-inducing effects of the internet and social media.

Then there’s Lessons in Chemistry—a book recommended to me by a longtime colleague that is one-part tragicomic novel and one part revenge fantasy. It’s not my typical reading fare, but I really liked this book about the trials and triumphs of a female scientist. I liked it so much that I sought out the author to find out what compelled her to write it. More on that later.

Lessons in Chemistry tells the story of a fictional character named Elizabeth Zott in 1950s-60s California, who is cheated out of a Ph.D. in chemistry by a predatory professor and then faces barriers and insults at every turn from male colleagues at the research institute where she plies her trade.

The chemistry in the title refers to the protagonist’s expertise in abiogenesis, the original evolution of life forms from inorganic substances. But it also refers to her romantic relationship with Calvin Evans, the one male colleague who doesn’t hold himself above women or regard Elizabeth as a threat to his professional status or his manhood.

The novel depicts with wit and whimsy what, on its surface, is a deeply troubling storyline in which men either talk over women or talk down to them, are dismissive of their capabilities and qualifications but then appropriate women’s ideas as their own. The outline will be all too familiar to women who were in the workplace in the 60s, and it repeats itself in the myriad of aggressions (micro- and otherwise) that women confront today.

In a sexist workplace, there is no place for the whip-smart and headstrong Elizabeth, who is both single (following Calvin’s sudden death) and pregnant. She is fired from her job at the institute, and after a series of twists and turns, becomes the unlikely host of a TV cooking show. How darkly ironic, one thinks—that a woman who is gifted in science ends up back in the kitchen on a show called “Supper at Six.”

But Elizabeth will have the last laugh. She ignores the TV show’s cue cards, and “Supper at Six.” becomes a platform for her to teach housewives not just what to cook for dinner (and the molecular chemistry behind it) but also their own value (outside of their domestic roles) and their capacity to be change agents. As the novel concludes, Elizabeth has returned to her scientific work at the institute, her former nemesis has been forced out, and a secretary who had earlier viewed Elizabeth as a threat has become an important ally.

I was curious why Bonnie Garmus chose this subject matter for her first novel. Serendipitously, a friend who runs an independent bookstore invited Garmus to do a book talk, so I turned up to hear Garmus tell her backstory. A copywriter by trade, Garmus has worked in many fields, including education, medicine and technology. Like her protagonist, she is from California, an avid rower and a mother, and she has faced her share of sexism and misogyny.

She began writing the book after attending a business meeting at which men talked down to her or talked over her. She went home and promptly wrote the first chapter, spinning the tale of Elizabeth, her daughter, “Mad” (Madeline), and their furry friend, Six-Thirty, a rescue dog with uncanny powers of observation. Many of the other characters in the novel feel familiar: men who insist they are allies but urge women to wait their turn, women who have developed their own internalized sense of inferiority, and the countless Elizabeths we all know, who have triumphed on their own merits and fortitude but also because there were people along the way who believed in them and recognized their intelligence and talent.

Thankfully, standards of acceptable workplace behavior have evolved since Elizabeth Zott’s day, yet I found Bonnie Garmus’ novel to be a potent reminder, blending humor and humanity, that there is still much work to be done, including at today’s law firms. And I agree with the colleague who recommended Lessons in Chemistry to me that every male professional should read it. (Others will enjoy it too.)

Reprinted with permission from the June 22, 2023 edition of The American Lawyer © 2023 ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited.