Garmus

Lessons in Chemistry, ­Bonnie Garmus’s hit first novel, came about because of a bad day at the office. A highly experienced copywriter in the tech industry, Garmus gave a presentation for a million-dollar campaign to a room full of male colleagues. It was greeted with silence, she recalls when we meet in the Chelsea flat where the American author now lives. “Finally, this man who I hadn’t met before speaks up: ‘Well, I’ll tell you what I think we should do!’ Then he basically just read my entire presentation, start to…

How did you weave serious themes like sexism and misogyny into a light narrative? Bonnie Garmus, author, Lessons in Chemistry (Courtesy the publisher) The book’s underlying theme is balance and chemistry is the science of balance. You cannot have an unbalanced chemical equation. Rowing too is the sport of balance, and the book strives to maintain a balance between the dark and light narrative. To me, that’s the best way to talk about difficult things, to see them through other perspectives, and to maintain a…

Bonnie Garmus, 65, grew up in California and lived in Seattle and Geneva before moving to London in 2017. Her internationally bestselling debut, Lessons in Chemistry, out in paperback next month, is soon to be televised with Captain Marvel star Brie Larson in the role of Elizabeth Zott, an American scientist who, sacked for being pregnant in 1955, takes revenge when she’s hired to front a teatime cookery show. For Stephen King, the novel is “the Catch-22 of early feminism: witty, sometimes hilarious, angry and often…