women in science

Brave the Wild River, by Melissa L. Sevigny

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Subtitled The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon, this nonfiction book rescues a story, misrepresented at the time and now forgotten by all but scientists. In 1938 botanist and University of Michigan professor Elzada Clover and her student Lois Jotter set off down the—at the time—untamed Colorado River with four men in homemade boats.

The women’s goal was to survey the plant life of the Grand Canyon for the first time. Only a very few people had ridden the Colorado—considered the most dangerous river in the world—through the Grand Canyon and survived. The media, of course, went wild over the idea of women going on such an expedition, and throughout the entire experience concentrated on their clothes and appearance, without mentioning botany or the women’s work.

Drawing on the journals of Clover, Jotter and three of the men, as well as her own background as a science journalist, Sevigny has created a thrilling and very human story of these two women and their accomplishments, which botanists and ecologists still rely on today. She brings to life the sensation of entering each new section of the river: the rapids, the soaring stone walls, the way storm clouds seem to boil down into canyons.

The interactions between the group are touched on lightly: the inevitable irritations, the teasing, and the mutual support and little kindnesses that carry the day. While the story concentrates on Clover and Jotter’s experience, the others are presented as well, especially the expedition leader Norman Nevills and Buzz Holmstrom (who did not travel with them).

Holmstrom was one of the few who had run the river and survived and, on hearing of the projected expedition, famously said, “Women . . . do not belong in the Canyon of the Colorado.” However, he came to respect and support Clover and Jotter. He followed their journey and, when possible, provided assistance. Afterwards, he was the only person Clover could talk with about how much she missed the river.

The author also slips in bits of background as needed. Much of the science we take for granted today was still in flux, such as evolution, the great age of the Earth, or the idea that plants or animals could become extinct. Continental drift was first proposed in 1912 was still considered nonsense. Geologists “did not yet believe land masses could unmoor themselves and go rollicking around the planet like bumper cars.”

Sevigny brings out the different ways plant life was being categorized and understood at the time, such as the idea that “plant communities advanced through stages of development to a final, stable stage, which might be forest, prairie, tundra or desert, depending on the region’s climate.” This culmination of this process—called succession—was thought to be a “climax community” which would then never change again. Of course, we see today how that explanation is insufficient, but Clover and Jotter were among the first to advocate a systems approach—what we understand as ecology today.

This is a gorgeous story of courage and camaraderie. Whether you’re looking for a thrilling adventure, an immersion in a strange and beautiful landscape, or a forgotten piece of women’s history, this is a great read.

Can you recommend a narrative nonfiction book about a forgotten piece of history?

Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus

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Lessons in Chemistry

Garmus’s enormously popular book was this month’s choice for two of my book clubs. In early 1960s U.S., Elizabeth Zott is the host of a hit cooking show, but it’s not just any cooking show and she’s not just any woman. She’s actually a research chemist, though her scientific career has been stymied in ways that you can imagine a woman trying to succeed in a scientific field at that time would encounter. Or today, for that matter.

Having lost her job at the research institute, she takes the television job in order to support herself and her daughter. She approaches cooking as chemistry, e.g., “combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride,” an approach her female audience loves. They start studying chemistry textbooks and begin to find their voices.

If this sounds like a fairy tale, well, that’s what it is. Enjoyable: hilarious in parts, horrible and sad in others. It’s a fast read. And unrealistic, of course.

The idea of chemistry and cooking as a path to empowerment for women has its merits. Many women of the time were undereducated, including my mother who was denied her dream of going to college like her brother because her parents didn’t see any point to it.

However, women should think twice about emulating Zott’s path to success. Stubbornly sticking to your guns, telling misogynistic men who have power over you just what you think about them don’t always work in real life. You can’t count on rousting the misogynists by standing your ground. Force of will is not enough.

And don’t hope to become a champion rower on your first attempt by studying physics.

The many anachronisms contribute to the unreality of the tale. As one of my book club friends noted, Zott is like a modern-day woman transplanted into the repressive, pre-second-wave-feminism period. Plus there were several factual anachronisms, such as talking about defunding the police.

Another factor in the fairy tale atmosphere are all the coincidences. People keep turning up and returning and just happening to be right there when needed for the plot. Zott just happens to be gorgeous but doesn’t care or even notice that she is. She just happens to meet the perfect partner for her who—surprise—adores her back AND is a famous chemist. She has no degrees but is one of the most brilliant chemists in the world just from self-study. I could go on.

I wanted to like this book more. I did like it, once I accepted that it was a fantasy, despite some gruesome scenes. However, as a woman who worked in a male-dominated STEM field through the last quarter of the 20th century and well into the 21st, I had hoped for a more realistic picture of how to deal with the problems involved. Just snapping your fingers and having the magic happen isn’t really useful.

However, the misogyny itself is not a fairy tale, so I hope this story helps young people see how things were back then, and in some ways still are today, whether they want to believe it or not. I hope, too, that this story acts as a corrective to the rosy, nostalgic picture of the 1950s and 1960s being pushed by the radical right.

If nothing else, I hope it encourages young women to go into STEM fields. Yes, there’s still prejudice against women, but it’s also easy to demonstrate real, irrefutable competence.

If you’ve read this novel, what did you think about it?

Salem’s Cipher, by Jess Lourey

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While the town of Salem, Massachusetts does make an appearance in this mystery/suspense novel, the title refers to Salem Wiley, a young woman whose deliberately uneventful existence in Minneapolis is torn apart by a phone call. She is a genius at cryptography and produced ground-breaking research for her PhD thesis, but her life is severely limited by a form of agoraphobia. The call from her best friend, Bel Odegaard, changes everything.

Police have informed Bel that her mother’s apartment has been broken into, a neighbor and her dog left in a pool of blood, and Grace–Bel’s mother–gone missing. When the two young women arrive, they discover that Salem’s mother was at the apartment as well, something we know from the prologue, and both Grace and Vida are missing, one of them probably dead.

Despite FBI Agent Stone’s warning that they too may be targets, Salem and Bel set out to follow the clue left for them by Vida, hoping to rescue their mothers. Or revenge them. As this tense, suspenseful novel tears along, the two women uncover a conspiracy going back hundreds of years. Each clue involves some kind of code, which Salem must decipher–and fast if they are to help their mothers. Factor in unforgettable characters they encounter, Emily Dickenson’s home and poetry, and an election about to produce the first female president of the U.S. and you have a story that works on several levels.

Lourey also works in references to scientific contributions by women, without slowing the breakneck speed of the story. She does an amazing job of capturing and conveying the emotions of the characters, especially the fraught mother-daughter relationships.

There are a few continuity problems that another editorial pass might have caught. There are also a couple of what Ray Rhamey calls “information questions” where information well known to the point-of-view character is teased yet deliberately withheld from the reader, presumably to create suspense. Mystery readers usually want to solve the puzzle along with the protagonist, so such tricks feel as though the author isn’t playing fair.

And it’s unnecessary, because Lourey is brilliant at ratcheting up the suspense. Every page has multiple instances of what Donald Maass calls “micro-tension” . A new and stunning bit of information or insight, a panicked physical reaction (“frantic movements”), even the use of especially active adjectives and verbs (“The . . . plane pitched and dropped, yanking Salem out of her light sleep.”) all keep the characters’ emotions in conflict and the reader turning the pages.

If you like to unravel a conspiracy or a good puzzle, if you long for a novel with engaging characters and a little history and literature thrown in, then hop on this rocket of a story.

Have you read a good mystery/suspense novel lately?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a copy of this book free from the author. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.