Review of Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus – The Absurd Continuation of Lessons in Chemistry
This unparalleled tale of intrigue at an eccentric poetry magazine in 1980s New York is very funny and humorous, and a sign of poetry's power. Bonnie Garmus's debut carries a universal feeling. The story of Elizabeth Zott, a gifted research chemist driven out of her laboratory by the rampant sexism of the 1950s, becomes an inspiring host.
If you've walked into a bookstore since 2022, or maybe even breathed your last breath, you couldn't fail to notice the phenomenon that was Chemistry Lessons. The debut of Bonnie Garmus is a global sensation. The story of Elizabeth Zat, a gifted research chemist driven out of her lab by rampant 1950s misogyny who became the inspirational host of a television cooking show, has sold 9 million copies worldwide. The book spent the best part of two years on the Sunday Times bestseller list, was translated into more than 40 languages and won numerous awards. It was turned into an Emmy-winning TV series in 2023. A year later, New York Times readers chose it as one of the 100 best books of the 21st century. Elizabeth Zoot made such a splash that even her favorite brand of rowing machine saw an increase in sales.
What was the secret of its great success? The timing helped. After #MeToo, readers embraced a hero who resists injustice, who ultimately prevails thanks to resilience, pragmatism, and straight-up hard work. It's smart and very funny, a propulsive blend of feminism and fiction that balances darkness with lust, heartbreak with hope. It also carries an unashamedly inspirational message. "Ladies, don't let your talents lie dormant," Zoot advises his homely TV studio audience. "Design your future. When you go home today, ask yourself what you will change. And then start."
Germus, then a copywriter, wrote the first chapter of Chemistry Lessons in anger after a meeting in which a male colleague openly accepted her ideas: her anger "lit a fire under me to tell this story." In Peck & Peck, his follow-up, there are fewer angry crackles on the page, but there are definitely fires, and not metaphorical ones. In the otherworldly New York offices of Peck & Peck, the world's most mysterious, prestigious, and dysfunctional poetry magazine, 39 editors have a single goal: to publish the world's best poetry. Unsuccessful submissions - and thousands of them every week - are burned by a team of released prisoners who work in the mail room.
double quote It is impossible not to be seduced by Gremus's irrepressible wit and the unbridled excitement of his imagination.
Garmus' sharp wit and knack for unique characters are both in full flow in this whimsical tale of Butter Gray, a boy named for his mother's fearless dog. Buter's parents—his father teaches history, his mother a typeface designer—are eager for him to pursue a sensible career, by which they mean a lucrative one. But Butter only cares about poetry. He is ecstatic when he lands a job at Pack & Pack by a stroke of luck, but finds himself in the basement making photocopies. Butter, who is fond of poetry, pathologically unable to resist problems, soon becomes embroiled in a bitter feud between two magazine editors, sworn enemies who happen to be twins.
The corporate machinations of a religious poetry magazine in the 1980s might seem like subtle choices for any mainstream novel, let alone a sequel to a blockbuster monster movie. The Endangered Future of Poetry doesn't exactly sit next to feminism as a rousing call to arms. Even Rainey, the typeface-correct Mother Butter (a ringer for Elizabeth Zoot) can't detract from the fact that poetry is "empty in art" and poets "never make a dime." And yet, from this apparently rarefied premise, Garmus makes a maddened office comedy with shades of Hogwarts (the Pack and Pack office building, with its vast glass dome, pneumatic tube delivery system and alphabet balcony canopy, is as fantastic as anything in JK Rowling's early work).
Although it sags a bit in the middle, the result is a more cohesive story, and a passionate case for the importance of poetry in a profit-seeking society that would gladly doom it to extinction. Garmus' riff on the lyrics that Pack and Pack sends straight to the incinerator is worth admission alone: “Anything written on scented paper, anything written in only small letters; Anything that includes a reference to self-publishing ... poems that mention kittens, puppies, cooking, sand castles, sand babies, sand babies, sunshine babies, beach runs, sunshine babies, cancers, babies. "namaste" ... anything written on paper ... anything that uses the word "thinks".
This dislike of temper tantrums does not prevent it from entering Gremus' own works. Readers exasperated by Six and C's dog, naturally intelligent chemistry classes, find themselves less annoyed than namesake Butters, a savior whose heroic actions overshadow Lacey. And yet it's impossible not to be seduced by Garmus's irrepressible wit and the unbridled excitement of his imagination. It's hard to imagine a novel with funnier jokes about typography, and harder still to account for his strong encouragement to us all. Will it repeat the amazing success of the chemistry lessons? Probably not, but there are lessons in this book that seem just as vital in this fast-paced age of artificial intelligence. "When you're into poetry, you're into everything," a longtime Peck & Peck editor tells Batter. Gremus shows it to us in spades.
Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus is published by Bonnier (£22). To support The Guardian, order your copy. Delivery charges may apply.