Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus review – the zany follow-up to Lessons in Chemistry
This offbeat tale of machinations at an eccentric poetry magazine in 80s New York is laugh-out-loud funny – and a paean to the power of poetry If you have been into a bookshop since 2022, or perhaps even just breathed in and out, you could not have failed to clock the phenomenon that was Lessons in Chemistry. Bonnie Garmus’s debut remains a global sensation. The story of Elizabeth Zott, a gifted research chemist…
Key points
- Bonnie Garmus has published Peck & Peck, a follow-up to her debut novel Lessons in Chemistry, which has sold 9m copies worldwide.
- The novel follows Batter Gray, a young poetry lover who lands a job at the eccentric New York poetry magazine Peck & Peck in the 1980s.
- The review calls the book a zany office comedy and an impassioned case for poetry's importance, though it sags a little in the middle.
Bonnie Garmus, whose debut novel Lessons in Chemistry became a global phenomenon, has released a follow-up titled Peck & Peck. The first book, about chemist Elizabeth Zott, has sold 9m copies worldwide, spent nearly two years on the Sunday Times bestseller list and was translated into more than 40 languages.
The new novel is set in 1980s New York at the offices of Peck & Peck, described as the most enigmatic, prestigious and dysfunctional poetry magazine in the world. Its 39 editors seek to publish the finest poems, while failed submissions are burned by prison parolees working in the mailroom.
A boy named for a dog
The story centres on Batter Gray, named after his mother's intrepid dog. His parents, a history teacher father and a typeface-designer mother, want him to pursue a lucrative career, but Batter cares only for poetry.
After landing a job at Peck & Peck by a fluke, he finds himself in the basement making photocopies. He is soon drawn into a feud between the magazine's two editors-in-chief, who are twins and sworn enemies.
When you're interested in poetry, you're interested in everything
— one of Peck & Peck's longstanding editors
What the review says
The review describes the book as a zany office comedy with shades of Hogwarts and the originality of early John Irving. It says Garmus's sharp wit and gift for offbeat characters are at full throttle, though the story sags a little in the middle.
It calls the novel a resoundingly impassioned case for poetry in a profit-obsessed society. The review notes that readers irked by the dog in Lessons in Chemistry may be similarly vexed by Batter's namesake, but says Garmus's humour and imagination are beguiling.
