{"product_id":"chemistry-isbn-9780525432227","title":"Chemistry","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003ePEN\/HEMINGWAY AWARD WINNER • \u003c\/b\u003eWHITING AWARD WINNER \u003cb\u003e• Smart, moving, and funny, a unique coming-of-age story about a quirky, overworked narrator who seems to be on the cusp of a perfect life but finds herself on a new path of discoveries about everything she thought she knew.   \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Told in a hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron.\" —\u003ci\u003eO, The Oprah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt first glance, the life of the narrator of Weike Wang’s debut novel seems ideal: she is studying for a prestigious PhD in chemistry that will make her Chinese parents proud (or at least satisfied), and her successful, supportive boyfriend has just proposed to her. But instead of feeling hopeful, she is wracked with ambivalence: the long, demanding hours at the lab have created an exquisite pressure cooker, and she doesn’t know how to answer the marriage question. Soon it all becomes too much and her life plan veers off course....\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the PEN\/Hemingway Award \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, \u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cb\u003eAnn Patchett on \u003ci\u003ePBS NewsHour\u003c\/i\u003e, Minnesota Public Radio, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003ePopSugar\u003c\/i\u003e, Maris Kreizman, \u003ci\u003eThe Morning News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWinner of \u003ci\u003ePloughshares’\u003c\/i\u003e John C. Zacharis Award\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of a Whiting Award\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Belletrist Amuse Book\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A comic and often precarious journey. . . . Told in a hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron.” —\u003ci\u003eO, The Oprah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Winningly original. . . . Pithy, casually brilliant. . . . So fresh and intimate and mordantly funny that she feels less like fiction than a friend you’ve known forever.” —\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The most assured novel about indecisiveness you’ll ever read. . . . An emotionally devastating novel about being young today.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“Endearing. . . . [Has] generous measures of humor and emotion.” \u003ci\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Starts as a charming confection and then proceeds to add on layers of emotional depth and complexity with every page. . . . I loved this novel.” —Ann Patchett, author of \u003ci\u003eBel Canto\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Told in short, penetrating bursts, the book is frequently mordantly funny and gets under your skin in a way that makes you really root for the narrator.” —\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Funny, original, compelling. . . . In a word, this debut is: elemental.” —Amy Hempel \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A genuine piece of literature: wise, humorous, and moving.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eHa Jin, National Book Award–winning author of \u003ci\u003eWaiting\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[An] outstanding debut. . . . \u003ci\u003eChemistry\u003c\/i\u003e may be the funniest novel ever written about living with depression.” —\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “With its limpid style, comic verve, and sensitive examination of love, need, and aspiration, this exquisitely soul-searching novel is sure to be one of the most outstanding debuts of the year.” —Sigrid Nunez\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Gemlike. . . . Slim enough to be wolfed down in one sitting, yet rich enough to merit an immediate re-read.” —Celeste Ng, author of \u003ci\u003eLittle Fires Everywhere\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A poignant tale of self-discovery that anyone who’s ever felt a little lost will relate to.” —\u003ci\u003eBuzzfeed\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “You won’t need a science background to fall in love with this contemplative debut novel.. . . Insightful (and always entertaining).” —\u003ci\u003ePaste\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A funny, wise debut about the heartache of uncertainty and the struggle to please others while forging one’s own path.” —Nando Pelusi, \u003ci\u003ePsychology Today\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“Mesmerizing. . . . Illuminat[es] a corner of the human experience that’s woefully underexplored. By the last page I was devastated, transported, and craving more.” —Emily Gould, author of \u003ci\u003eFriendship \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eChemistry\u003c\/i\u003e (appropriately enough) explodes the stereotype of the model minority. Wang’s voice is a revelation.” —Peter Ho Davies, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Fortunes \u003c\/i\u003eWEIKE WANG\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eis a graduate of Harvard University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry and her doctorate in public health. Her first novel, \u003ci\u003eChemistry\u003c\/i\u003e, received the PEN\/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction, \u003ci\u003ePloughshares\u003c\/i\u003e' John C. Zacharis Award, and a Whiting Award. A “5 Under 35” honoree of the National Book Foundation, Weike currently lives in New York City.Part I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe boy asks the girl a question. It is a question of marriage. Ask me again tomorrow, she says, and he says, That’s not how this works.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDiamond is no longer the hardest mineral known to man. New Scientist reports that lonsdaleite is. Lons­daleite is 58 percent harder than diamond and forms only when meteorites smash themselves into Earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lab mate says to make a list of pros and cons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWrite it all down, prove it to yourself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe then nods sympathetically and pats me on the arm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lab mate is a solver of hard problems. Her desk is next to mine but is neater and more result-­producing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBig deal, she says of her many, many publications and doesn’t take herself too seriously, is busy but not that busy, talks about things other than chemistry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI find her outlook refreshing, yet strange. If I were that accomplished, I would casually bring up my published papers in conversation. Have you read so-­and-­so? Because it is quite worth your time. The tables alone are beautiful and well formatted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have only one paper out. The tables are in fact very beautiful, all clear and double-­spaced line borders. All succinct and informative titles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomewhere I read that the average number of readers for a scientific paper is 0.6.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I make the list. The pros are extensive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEric cooks dinner. Eric cooks great dinners. Eric hands me the toothbrush with toothpaste on it and sometimes even sticks it in my mouth. Eric takes out the trash, the recycling; waters all our plants because I can’t seem to remember that they’re living things. These leaves feel crunchy, he said after the week that he was gone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe goes that week to California for a conference with other young and established chemists.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlso Eric drives me to lab when it’s too rainy to bike. Boston sees a great deal of rain. Sometimes the rain comes down horizontal and hits the face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlso Eric walks the dog. We have a dog. Eric got him for me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI realize that I don’t have any cons. I knew this going in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is a half-­list, I tell the lab mate the next day, and she offers to buy me a cookie.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn lab, there are two boxes filled with argon. It is where I do highly sensitive chemistry, the kind that can never see air. Once air is let in, the chemicals catch fire. It is also where I wish to put my head on days of nothing going right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn those days, I add the wrong amount of catalyst. Or I add the wrong catalyst.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCatalysts make reactions go faster. They lower activation energy, which is the indecision each reaction faces before committing to its path.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat use is this work in the long run? I ask myself in the room when I am alone. The solvent room officially, but I have renamed it the Fortress of Solitude.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEric is no longer in this lab. He graduated last year and is now in another lab. A chemistry PhD takes at least five years to complete. We met when I was in my first and he was in his second.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow I walk around our apartment and trip over his stuff: big black drum bags and steel pots and carboys with brown liquid fermenting inside. Eric plays the drums and brews beer. One con is how much space these two hobbies take up, but this is outweighed by the drums that I like to hear and the beer that I like to drink.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy pro list grows at an exponential rate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe had talked about marriage before. Can you see yourself settling down, having kids? Can you see your­self starting a family? I didn’t say no, but I didn’t say yes. We had these talks casually. Each time, he thought if actually proposed to, I would say something different.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt least now all my cards are on the table, he says. But please don’t take too long to decide.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt has been the summer of unbearable heat. At the Home Depot, we go up and down aisles looking for a fan. Our last fan broke yesterday and next week it is supposed to be hotter. Then next month, a hurricane.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Eric sees the hurricane report, he wonders if the people who wrote it are just screwing with us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhy would they do that? I ask.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause it’s funny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOh, right. Then a minute later, I laugh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePatience is Eric’s greatest virtue. He will wait in longer lines than I will and think nothing of it. He will smile, while holding a heavy fan, at the older woman in front of him who has brought a tall stack of lampshades and at the moment of payment is having second thoughts. She asks the clerk for his opinion. She asks Eric. Do I need the magenta? Me, she doesn’t bother with, because I am the one with the furiously tapping foot. The woman considers some more, turning each lampshade in her hands, but in the end purchases nothing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI tell Eric in the car that if I were to reimagine Hell, it would be no different from the line we were just in. Except the woman would never decide on a lampshade and the line would never move.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCan you imagine? I say. A worse punishment than pushing that thing up the hill.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA boulder, Eric says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI realize what a hypocrite I’m being, to make him wait for an answer and then dwell on a twenty-­five-­minute line.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce home, Eric sets the fan up and the dog goes crazy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo years ago, Eric and I moved in together. We do not have a dog but we are thinking about it. What kind? Eric asks. Big? Small? I don’t have a preference. How about just adorable?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen he first brings him home, I hear the tail, long and bushy, thumping against the couch. A forty-­five-­pound goldendoodle. Incredibly adorable. When he runs, his ears flop. If we never groomed him, his hair would keep growing and he would look like a blond bear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe blond bear loves people and this is good. But then we discover that he is afraid of everything else: the hair dryer, an empty box, the fan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBad tempers run in my family. It is the dominant allele, like black hair. Eric has red hair. Our friends have asked if there is any way our babies will turn out to be gingers. Gingers are dying out, and our friends are concerned about Eric’s beautiful locks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI say, Unless Mendel was completely wrong about genetics, our babies will have my hair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut our friends can still dream. An Asian baby with red hair. One friend says, You could write a Science paper on that and then apply for academic jobs and then get tenure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEric is already looking for academic jobs. He wants to teach at a college that primarily serves undergrads.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause they are the future, he says. Eager to learn, energetic, and happy, more or less, as compared with grad students. With undergrads, I can make a real difference.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t say this but I think it: You are the only person I know who talks like that. So enthusiastically and benefit-­of-­the-­doubt-­giving.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the colleges he’s interested in are not in Boston. They are in places like Oberlin, Ohio.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am certain that Eric will get the job. His career path is very straight, like that of an arrow to its target. If I were to draw my path out, it would look like a gas particle flying around in space.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lab mate often echoes the wisdom of many chemists before her. You must love chemistry even when it is not working. You must love chemistry unconditionally.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe friends who ask about the red-­haired babies are the ones recently married or the ones recently married with a dog. Whenever we have them over for dinner, like tonight, they think we are trying to tell them that we are engaged.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNews? they say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot yet, I reply, but here, have some freshly grated Parmesan cheese instead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBehind my back, I know they are less kind. They ask each other, It’s been four years, hasn’t it? They joke, She is only with him for his money.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is common knowledge now that graduate students make close to nothing and that there are more PhD scientists in this country than there are jobs for them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Eric first decides to do a PhD, it is in high school. He takes a chemistry class and excels. This is in western Maryland, in a town with many steepled churches but no Starbucks. Every other year we drive three hours from the DC airport, through a gap in the Appalachian Mountains, and arrive at a picturesque place where Eric seems to know everyone. He waves to the man across the horseshoe bar, his former band teacher. He waves to the woman at the post office, the mother of a high school friend. The diner with the horseshoe bar is called Niners. There is always farmland for sale and working mills.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometimes I wonder why he left a place where every ice-­cream shop is called a creamery to work seventy-­hour weeks in lab. He credits the chemistry teacher, who asked him often, What are you going to do afterward? And don’t just say stick around.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA belief among Chinese mothers is that children pick their own traits in the womb. The smart ones work diligently to pick the better traits. The dumb ones get easily flustered and fall asleep. For their laziness, they are then dealt the worse traits.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOr perhaps this is just a belief of my own mother.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHad you chosen better, you would have not ended up with your father’s terrible temper or my poor vision.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t want to believe this but it has become so ingrained. Compared with mine, Eric’s temper is nonexistent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThursday, trash day. We pick the wrong streets to go down and drive for miles behind a garbage truck. It is a one-­way road. It is also a one-­lane road. But not once does he sigh or complain. He puts on jazz music instead. Listen to this, he says. But all I hear is the going and stopping of the truck, the picking up and dumping of trash, the clanking of metal bins. So frustrated am I after one song that I lean over and press the horn for him. Then out the window, I shout at the truck, Excuse me, do you mind?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe PhD advisor visits my desk, sits down, brings his hands together, and asks, Where do you see your project going in five years?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFive years? I say in disbelief. I would hope to be graduated by then and in the real world with a job.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI see, he says. Perhaps then it is time to start a new project, one that is more within your capabilities.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe leaves me to it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe desire to throw something at his head never goes away. Depending on what he says, it is either the computer or the desk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI sketch out possible projects. Alchemy, for one. If I could achieve that today, I could graduate tomorrow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA guy in lab strongly believes that women do not belong in science. He’s said that women lack the balls to actually do science.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhich isn’t wrong. We do lack balls.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut if he had said that to me at the start of grad school, I would have punched him. Coming in, I think myself the best at chemistry. In high school, I win a national award for it. I say, cockily, at orientation, Yes, that was me, only to realize that everyone else had won it as well, at some point, in addition to awards I have never won.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lab guy is still around. He works with the lab mate. If all goes well, they will have another paper next year and then they will graduate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWomen lack the balls to do science, he still says. With the exception of your lab mate. She has three.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLater I ask Eric, How many balls do you think I have?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is poor timing. We have just gotten into bed and started to kiss.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUh, none? he says, and the kissing is over. I was hoping he would have said something along the lines of three and a half.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Chinese proverb: Outside of sky there is sky, outside of people there are people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is the idea of infinity and also that there will always be someone better than you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEric says the proverb reminds him of a story from Indian philosophy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThree hundred years ago, the world was believed to be a flat plate that rested on an elephant that rested on a turtle. Below that turtle was another turtle and below that turtle was another one. It was turtles all the way down.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303063081189,"sku":"NP9780525432227","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525432227.jpg?v=1767723616","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/chemistry-isbn-9780525432227","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}