Even when she finds her soulmate, Nobel-nominated chemist Calvin Evans, their happiness is a further spur to jealous rivals and doomed not to last. Female scientists are viewed with suspicion by their male colleagues from her earliest undergraduate days, Elizabeth has been subject to attacks on her reputation and her person, from the major – sexual assault and theft of her work – to the casual everyday misogyny meted out by people, including other women, who see her independence and single-mindedness as a threat. By training she is a research chemist, though her academic career has foundered despite her obvious talent, and as the narrative jumps back 10 years we understand why. Photograph: Dain Rhys EvansĪs the novel opens in 1961, Elizabeth is a 30-year-old single mother and the reluctant, “permanently depressed” star of a cooking show for housewives called Supper at Six.
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