Lessons in Writing a Bestseller

IN 2022, A 64-YEAR-OLD American writer published her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry (Doubleday; 400 pages; `699), which went on to become a worldwide bestseller. Bonnie Garmus’ book is interesting, not just for the fact it went into a 19-way auction between editors at top publishing firms, or for its topic, but also for its writer’s journey. Garmus faced 98 rejections for an earlier novel, and continued her day job as a freelance copywriter. In an interview, Garmus said the book came from her personal experi­ence with male condescension. After attending one too many meetings where the ideas she put forth were ignored, and when a man repeated those ideas within a few minutes and everyone said ‘Wow!’, Garmus went home and wrote the first chapter of Lessons in Chemistry.

We begin in 1961 with the brilliant 30-year-old chemist Elizabeth Zott, a single mother, and the unlikely star of a hit cooking show, Supper at Six. Her acerbic style and scientific approach to cooking make her a household name and America’s darling. But the “perma­nently depressed” star, banished home by her less capable male boss (unwed mothers were fired from their jobs in that era), hankers to continue with her chemistry work, even setting up a lab in her kitchen and undertaking assign­ments from her less able ex-colleagues. With an idiosyncratic sense of humour and little interest in what women of her time are supposed to want—marriage, children and domestic bliss—Zott is a mesmerising protagonist. Flashback to 1952 and we learn more about how such a feisty woman, who wants to live life on her own terms, ended up as a cooking show star. Her dreams of a PhD go up in smoke after the offer is withdrawn when her advisor sexually assaults her, and she stabs him with a pencil. And in her job at Hastings Research Institute, Zott’s all-male colleagues take a dim view of female equality, save one. Nobel prize nominated Calvin Evans, lonely, brilliant and a world-class grudge-holder falls in love with Elizabeth. Their chem­istry is undeniable, and forged by their traumatic childhood reminiscences, which later create further turmoil, trag­edy, and ultimately good fortune for Zott.

Her cooking show host role comes when Zott storms into the television studio and complains to the producer that his daughter has been stealing her daughter’s lunches. One thing leads to another, and soon, her acerbic style and scientific approach to cooking make her a household name and America’s dar­ling. But not everyone is happy because, as the book’s blurb aptly puts it, Zott isn’t just teaching women how to cook. She is daring them to change the status quo. Starting with her daughter , “Play sports at recess but do not automatically let the boys win,” she writes on a slip of paper and tucks it in the lunch box. It is her direct, no-nonsense and acerbic slant of view that creates a comic effect and endears her to us. The supporting cast are equally zany—a rescue dog whose thoughts we hear, a neighbour whose tip to her as a new mother is: take a moment every day where you are your own prior­ity. The neighbour “didn’t mention she’d never followed this advice herself.”

Though we head-hop often (usually a no-no for debut authors), sometimes even into the dog’s point of view, Lessons in Chemistry moves at a slapping pace, buoyed by the undercurrent of comedy from the disjuncture between society’s view on what women ought to want (such as motherly caring for crying ba­bies at all hours) and what they actually want (Elizabeth confesses she wanted to give her baby away twice). The wry narrative lifts what is at the heart of the book: love, its loss, and how to cope with­out losing one’s sense of self and agency. It is a sparkling, immersive and deeply endearing read.

ONE COULD ARGUE that there are other books that deal well with the themes of Lessons in Chemistry, but they are not bestsellers. What made Garmus’ book a bestseller? In The Bestseller Code, Jodie Archer and Matthew L Jockers offer us insights into the in­gredients of a successful novel. Using an algorithm run through a computer, they highlight patterns inherent to books that are most likely to succeed. Focus on marriage, relationships, mothers, chil­dren, guns and schools. Except for guns, Lessons in Chemistry has these in bucket-loads. Avoid sex, drugs and rock‘n’roll, and no subjecting your readers to seduc­tion— Lessons in Chemistry ticks this box too. Bodies can be described only in pain and in a crime scene. Agreed.

Archer and Jockers find that human closeness and human connection is key to making a bestseller, and that, Lessons in Chemistry delivers in bag-fulls. The core of the story is about love—the connec­tions Elizabeth makes with the father of her child, her neighbours, a rescue dog, and other parents. It is a bittersweet tale of life with its triumphs and tragedies; grief is handled with a light touch.

In bestsellers, readers are attracted to a decisive main character, say Archer and Jockers. That Elizabeth is— quirky with definite views on how she wants to be in the world and how she wants the world to be. She ignores the cue cards with silly jokes during the filming of the TV show and blithely carries on treating the housewife-viewers as intelligent and curious people, her patter gives them information on the chemistry of the food ingredients. She refuses to dress in a sexy way despite being told to do so by the TV executives. She creates a lab in her kitchen when she can no longer use the Hastings Research one. And the not-tak­ing-anything-lying-down Elizabeth does stab her advisor-aggressor with a pencil.

Other elements of bestsellers focus on the craft—shorter, cleaner sentences, active verbs rather than passive ones, a character who makes things happen. Garmus’ book ticks those boxes too. The language is simple and direct, the thoughts clear with a razor-sharp wit, and a protagonist who makes things happen. And how!

But ultimately, the algo­rithm simply confirms what we, as readers, instinctively ap­preciate about a well-written novel like Lessons in Chemistry that connects wry humour with the preoccupations and issues of our lives.

WHICH BRINGS ME to the X factor. In my view, a book appeals to millions when its themes check mul­tiple boxes of the zeitgeist of a particular age. Zeitgeist, the German word for the spirit of the times, the intellectual, moral and cultural climate, is an elusive concept, but nevertheless is very much part of determining a book’s success. A glance at moral and cultural issues that have evoked outrage, and the intel­lectual elements that have sparked the public imagination, manifested in hit TV shows, books and films can give us a sense of our time’s zeitgeist.

The Bletchley Circle (brilliant women mathematicians who were hired as co­debreakers in Bletchley during the Sec­ond World War regroup in the 1950s to solve murders) and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (a women who breaks into the male world of stand-up comedians in the 1950s) are among the top-rated shows in the recent past. These and other popular shows like The Queen’s Gambit (an or­phaned female chess prodigy’s rise to the top in the 1960s) focus on the struggle by highly able women to be seen as equal and accomplished in arenas dominated by men.

Add to it, the trending items in social media in the past few years. Sexual misconduct by men in the workplace tops that list, highlighted by the recent MeToo movement and revealed by the victims in the online and off-line articles.

Another theme—of working mothers without childcare—is present more now than before as families become smaller and more nuclear, and both parents work. Yet, the burden of home and childcare continues to fall on the woman, accen­tuated even more in the case of a single mother like Elizabeth.

Another theme is about brilliance: there is an implicit notion that brilliance is found more in men than women. You only have to look at Nobel Prize winners until 2022: only 61 women have won it since 1901, and over half of these were either for peace or literature. Compare this to 898 male win­ners, a majority winning in the sciences. Only seven women have won the Nobel for chemistry. By making her protagonist brilliant in chemistry, usually considered a male preserve, Garmus connects to a key element of our zeitgeist: that women are brilliant, have agency and are willing and able to use it. And Apple TV agrees — Brie Larson stars as Elizabeth Zott in the upcoming 2023 series.

The feisty protagonist in Lessons in Chemistry clicks with us, readers, because though she may be out of place in her time, she is very much a woman of our times, a woman we revere for forg­ing her own path, of being true to her own sense of self.

About The Author

Shylashri Shankar

Shylashri Shankar is the author of Turmeric Nation - A Passage Through India's Tastes