American · b. 1957
Bonnie Garmus was sixty-four years old when her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry, became one of the biggest books of 2022. Set in the 1960s, the novel follows Elizabeth Zott, a chemist who becomes an unlikely cooking show host and refuses to dumb down science for her audience. Garmus worked in advertising and technology for decades, founding a creative agency and raising two daughters before turning to fiction. The novel spent years in development, rejected by multiple publishers before Doubleday took a chance. It became a number one New York Times bestseller, was adapted into an Apple TV+ series starring Brie Larson, and launched Garmus into the ranks of breakout debut novelists. Her background in advertising shows in the book's sharp, punchy prose and its instinct for memorable characters. She divides her time between Seattle and London.