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Chemistry

A Novel

Part of Vintage Contemporaries

Author Weike Wang
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$16.00 US
Knopf | Vintage
On sale Apr 03, 2018 | 224 Pages | 978-0-525-43222-7
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  • English > Comparative Literature: American > Asian American Fiction
  • English > Literature > American Literature – 21st Century
  • About
  • Excerpt
  • Awards
  • Author
Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award 

A Washington Post Notable Book

One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Ann Patchett on PBS NewsHour, Minnesota Public Radio, PopSugar, Maris Kreizman, The Morning News

Winner of Ploughshares’ John C. Zacharis Award

Winner of a Whiting Award

A Belletrist Amuse Book

At first glance, the quirky, overworked narrator of Weike Wang’s debut novel seems to be on the cusp of a perfect life: 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. When it all becomes too much and her life plan veers off course, she finds herself on a new path of discoveries about everything she thought she knew. Smart, moving, and always funny, this unique coming-of-age story is certain to evoke a winning reaction.

“Endearing. . . . [Has] generous measures of humor and emotion.” —The New York Times Book Review

“The most assured novel about indecisiveness you’ll ever read. . . . An emotionally devastating novel about being young today.” —The Washington Post  

“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.” —Chicago Tribune 

“A comic and often precarious journey. . . . Told in a hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron.” —O, The Oprah Magazine 

“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.” —Entertainment Weekly 

“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 Bel Canto

“Funny, original, compelling. . . . In a word, this debut is: elemental.” —Amy Hempel 

“A genuine piece of literature: wise, humorous, and moving.” —Ha Jin, National Book Award–winning author of Waiting 

“[An] outstanding debut. . . . Chemistry may be the funniest novel ever written about living with depression.” —People 

“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

“Gemlike. . . . Slim enough to be wolfed down in one sitting, yet rich enough to merit an immediate re-read.” —Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere

“A poignant tale of self-discovery that anyone who’s ever felt a little lost will relate to.” —Buzzfeed 

“You won’t need a science background to fall in love with this contemplative debut novel.. . . Insightful (and always entertaining).” —Paste 

“A funny, wise debut about the heartache of uncertainty and the struggle to please others while forging one’s own path.” —Nando Pelusi, Psychology Today
 
“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 Friendship 

“Chemistry (appropriately enough) explodes the stereotype of the model minority. Wang’s voice is a revelation.” —Peter Ho Davies, author of The Fortunes 
Part I

The 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.

Diamond 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.

•••

The lab mate says to make a list of pros and cons.

Write it all down, prove it to yourself.

She then nods sympathetically and pats me on the arm.

The lab mate is a solver of hard problems. Her desk is next to mine but is neater and more result-­producing.

Big 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.

I 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.

I have only one paper out. The tables are in fact very beautiful, all clear and double-­spaced line borders. All succinct and informative titles.

Somewhere I read that the average number of readers for a scientific paper is 0.6.

So I make the list. The pros are extensive.

Eric 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.

He goes that week to California for a conference with other young and established chemists.

Also 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.

Also Eric walks the dog. We have a dog. Eric got him for me.

I realize that I don’t have any cons. I knew this going in.

It is a half-­list, I tell the lab mate the next day, and she offers to buy me a cookie.

In 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.

On those days, I add the wrong amount of catalyst. Or I add the wrong catalyst.

Catalysts make reactions go faster. They lower activation energy, which is the indecision each reaction faces before committing to its path.

What 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.

Eric 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.

Now 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.

My pro list grows at an exponential rate.

•••

We 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.

At least now all my cards are on the table, he says. But please don’t take too long to decide.

•••

It 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.

When Eric sees the hurricane report, he wonders if the people who wrote it are just screwing with us.

Why would they do that? I ask.

Because it’s funny.

Oh, right. Then a minute later, I laugh.

Patience 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.

I 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.

Can you imagine? I say. A worse punishment than pushing that thing up the hill.

A boulder, Eric says.

I realize what a hypocrite I’m being, to make him wait for an answer and then dwell on a twenty-­five-­minute line.

Once home, Eric sets the fan up and the dog goes crazy.

•••

Two 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?

When 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.

The 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.

•••

Bad 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.

I say, Unless Mendel was completely wrong about genetics, our babies will have my hair.

But 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.

Eric is already looking for academic jobs. He wants to teach at a college that primarily serves undergrads.

Because 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.

I 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.

But the colleges he’s interested in are not in Boston. They are in places like Oberlin, Ohio.

I 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.

The 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.

The 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.

News? they say.

Not yet, I reply, but here, have some freshly grated Parmesan cheese instead.

Behind 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.

It 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.

When 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.

Sometimes 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.

•••

A 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.

Or perhaps this is just a belief of my own mother.

Had you chosen better, you would have not ended up with your father’s terrible temper or my poor vision.

I don’t want to believe this but it has become so ingrained. Compared with mine, Eric’s temper is nonexistent.

Thursday, 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?

•••

The PhD advisor visits my desk, sits down, brings his hands together, and asks, Where do you see your project going in five years?

Five years? I say in disbelief. I would hope to be graduated by then and in the real world with a job.

I see, he says. Perhaps then it is time to start a new project, one that is more within your capabilities.

He leaves me to it.

The desire to throw something at his head never goes away. Depending on what he says, it is either the computer or the desk.

I sketch out possible projects. Alchemy, for one. If I could achieve that today, I could graduate tomorrow.

A guy in lab strongly believes that women do not belong in science. He’s said that women lack the balls to actually do science.

Which isn’t wrong. We do lack balls.

But 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.

The 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.

Women lack the balls to do science, he still says. With the exception of your lab mate. She has three.

Later I ask Eric, How many balls do you think I have?

It is poor timing. We have just gotten into bed and started to kiss.

Uh, none? he says, and the kissing is over. I was hoping he would have said something along the lines of three and a half.

•••

A Chinese proverb: Outside of sky there is sky, outside of people there are people.

It is the idea of infinity and also that there will always be someone better than you.

Eric says the proverb reminds him of a story from Indian philosophy.

Three 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.
Copyright © 2017 by Weike Wang. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
  • WINNER | 2018
    PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Novel
  • WINNER | 2018
    PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Novel
  • WINNER | 2018
    PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Novel
© Amanda Petersen Photography
Weike Wang is a graduate of Harvard University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry and her doctorate in public health. She received her MFA from Boston University. Her fiction has been published in literary magazines, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Glimmer Train, and Ploughshares, which also named Chemistry the winner of its John C. Zacharis Award. A “5 Under 35” honoree of the National Book Foundation, Weike currently lives in New York City. View titles by Weike Wang

About

Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award 

A Washington Post Notable Book

One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Ann Patchett on PBS NewsHour, Minnesota Public Radio, PopSugar, Maris Kreizman, The Morning News

Winner of Ploughshares’ John C. Zacharis Award

Winner of a Whiting Award

A Belletrist Amuse Book

At first glance, the quirky, overworked narrator of Weike Wang’s debut novel seems to be on the cusp of a perfect life: 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. When it all becomes too much and her life plan veers off course, she finds herself on a new path of discoveries about everything she thought she knew. Smart, moving, and always funny, this unique coming-of-age story is certain to evoke a winning reaction.

“Endearing. . . . [Has] generous measures of humor and emotion.” —The New York Times Book Review

“The most assured novel about indecisiveness you’ll ever read. . . . An emotionally devastating novel about being young today.” —The Washington Post  

“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.” —Chicago Tribune 

“A comic and often precarious journey. . . . Told in a hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron.” —O, The Oprah Magazine 

“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.” —Entertainment Weekly 

“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 Bel Canto

“Funny, original, compelling. . . . In a word, this debut is: elemental.” —Amy Hempel 

“A genuine piece of literature: wise, humorous, and moving.” —Ha Jin, National Book Award–winning author of Waiting 

“[An] outstanding debut. . . . Chemistry may be the funniest novel ever written about living with depression.” —People 

“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

“Gemlike. . . . Slim enough to be wolfed down in one sitting, yet rich enough to merit an immediate re-read.” —Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere

“A poignant tale of self-discovery that anyone who’s ever felt a little lost will relate to.” —Buzzfeed 

“You won’t need a science background to fall in love with this contemplative debut novel.. . . Insightful (and always entertaining).” —Paste 

“A funny, wise debut about the heartache of uncertainty and the struggle to please others while forging one’s own path.” —Nando Pelusi, Psychology Today
 
“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 Friendship 

“Chemistry (appropriately enough) explodes the stereotype of the model minority. Wang’s voice is a revelation.” —Peter Ho Davies, author of The Fortunes 

Excerpt

Part I

The 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.

Diamond 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.

•••

The lab mate says to make a list of pros and cons.

Write it all down, prove it to yourself.

She then nods sympathetically and pats me on the arm.

The lab mate is a solver of hard problems. Her desk is next to mine but is neater and more result-­producing.

Big 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.

I 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.

I have only one paper out. The tables are in fact very beautiful, all clear and double-­spaced line borders. All succinct and informative titles.

Somewhere I read that the average number of readers for a scientific paper is 0.6.

So I make the list. The pros are extensive.

Eric 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.

He goes that week to California for a conference with other young and established chemists.

Also 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.

Also Eric walks the dog. We have a dog. Eric got him for me.

I realize that I don’t have any cons. I knew this going in.

It is a half-­list, I tell the lab mate the next day, and she offers to buy me a cookie.

In 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.

On those days, I add the wrong amount of catalyst. Or I add the wrong catalyst.

Catalysts make reactions go faster. They lower activation energy, which is the indecision each reaction faces before committing to its path.

What 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.

Eric 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.

Now 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.

My pro list grows at an exponential rate.

•••

We 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.

At least now all my cards are on the table, he says. But please don’t take too long to decide.

•••

It 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.

When Eric sees the hurricane report, he wonders if the people who wrote it are just screwing with us.

Why would they do that? I ask.

Because it’s funny.

Oh, right. Then a minute later, I laugh.

Patience 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.

I 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.

Can you imagine? I say. A worse punishment than pushing that thing up the hill.

A boulder, Eric says.

I realize what a hypocrite I’m being, to make him wait for an answer and then dwell on a twenty-­five-­minute line.

Once home, Eric sets the fan up and the dog goes crazy.

•••

Two 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?

When 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.

The 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.

•••

Bad 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.

I say, Unless Mendel was completely wrong about genetics, our babies will have my hair.

But 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.

Eric is already looking for academic jobs. He wants to teach at a college that primarily serves undergrads.

Because 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.

I 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.

But the colleges he’s interested in are not in Boston. They are in places like Oberlin, Ohio.

I 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.

The 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.

The 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.

News? they say.

Not yet, I reply, but here, have some freshly grated Parmesan cheese instead.

Behind 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.

It 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.

When 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.

Sometimes 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.

•••

A 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.

Or perhaps this is just a belief of my own mother.

Had you chosen better, you would have not ended up with your father’s terrible temper or my poor vision.

I don’t want to believe this but it has become so ingrained. Compared with mine, Eric’s temper is nonexistent.

Thursday, 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?

•••

The PhD advisor visits my desk, sits down, brings his hands together, and asks, Where do you see your project going in five years?

Five years? I say in disbelief. I would hope to be graduated by then and in the real world with a job.

I see, he says. Perhaps then it is time to start a new project, one that is more within your capabilities.

He leaves me to it.

The desire to throw something at his head never goes away. Depending on what he says, it is either the computer or the desk.

I sketch out possible projects. Alchemy, for one. If I could achieve that today, I could graduate tomorrow.

A guy in lab strongly believes that women do not belong in science. He’s said that women lack the balls to actually do science.

Which isn’t wrong. We do lack balls.

But 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.

The 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.

Women lack the balls to do science, he still says. With the exception of your lab mate. She has three.

Later I ask Eric, How many balls do you think I have?

It is poor timing. We have just gotten into bed and started to kiss.

Uh, none? he says, and the kissing is over. I was hoping he would have said something along the lines of three and a half.

•••

A Chinese proverb: Outside of sky there is sky, outside of people there are people.

It is the idea of infinity and also that there will always be someone better than you.

Eric says the proverb reminds him of a story from Indian philosophy.

Three 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.
Copyright © 2017 by Weike Wang. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Awards

  • WINNER | 2018
    PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Novel
  • WINNER | 2018
    PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Novel
  • WINNER | 2018
    PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Novel

Author

© Amanda Petersen Photography
Weike Wang is a graduate of Harvard University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry and her doctorate in public health. She received her MFA from Boston University. Her fiction has been published in literary magazines, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Glimmer Train, and Ploughshares, which also named Chemistry the winner of its John C. Zacharis Award. A “5 Under 35” honoree of the National Book Foundation, Weike currently lives in New York City. View titles by Weike Wang

Additional formats

  • Chemistry
    Chemistry
    A novel
    Weike Wang
    978-1-5247-3175-5
    $8.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    May 23, 2017
  • Chemistry
    Chemistry
    A novel
    Weike Wang
    978-1-5247-8135-4
    $14.00 US
    Audiobook Download
    Random House Audio
    May 23, 2017
  • Chemistry
    Chemistry
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    Weike Wang
    978-1-5247-3175-5
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  • Chemistry
    Chemistry
    A novel
    Weike Wang
    978-1-5247-8135-4
    $14.00 US
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    May 23, 2017

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    Nov 17, 2020
  • Sleep Donation
    Sleep Donation
    Karen Russell
    978-0-525-56608-3
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 29, 2020
  • Middle England
    Middle England
    A novel
    Jonathan Coe
    978-0-525-56684-7
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 14, 2020
  • Everything Inside
    Everything Inside
    Stories
    Edwidge Danticat
    978-0-525-56305-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 07, 2020
  • The Flight Portfolio
    The Flight Portfolio
    A novel
    Julie Orringer
    978-0-307-94971-4
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 30, 2020
  • Water Witches
    Water Witches
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-593-08178-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 30, 2020
  • Very Nice
    Very Nice
    A novel
    Marcy Dermansky
    978-0-525-56522-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 09, 2020
  • Dual Citizens
    Dual Citizens
    A novel
    Alix Ohlin
    978-0-525-56355-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 19, 2020
  • The Body in Question
    The Body in Question
    A Novel
    Jill Ciment
    978-0-525-56537-6
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 19, 2020
  • Orange World and Other Stories
    Orange World and Other Stories
    Karen Russell
    978-0-525-56607-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 05, 2020
  • Lost and Wanted
    Lost and Wanted
    A novel
    Nell Freudenberger
    978-0-8041-7096-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 31, 2020
  • The River
    The River
    A novel
    Peter Heller
    978-0-525-56353-2
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 03, 2020
  • Goulash
    Goulash
    A Novel
    Brian Kimberling
    978-0-345-80337-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 21, 2020
  • The Stories of Alice Adams
    The Stories of Alice Adams
    Alice Adams
    978-1-9848-9811-1
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Nov 19, 2019
  • Old Newgate Road
    Old Newgate Road
    A novel
    Keith Scribner
    978-0-525-56346-4
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 08, 2019
  • Notes from the Fog
    Notes from the Fog
    Ben Marcus
    978-1-101-97168-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 09, 2019
  • Red, White, Blue
    Red, White, Blue
    A novel
    Lea Carpenter
    978-0-525-43298-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 04, 2019
  • Good Trouble
    Good Trouble
    Stories
    Joseph O'Neill
    978-0-525-43664-5
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 14, 2019
  • Sociable
    Sociable
    Rebecca Harrington
    978-0-8041-7217-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 05, 2019
  • The Flight Attendant
    The Flight Attendant
    A Novel
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-525-43268-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 08, 2019
  • Cockfosters
    Cockfosters
    Stories
    Helen Simpson
    978-0-525-56362-4
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 04, 2018
  • Gork, the Teenage Dragon
    Gork, the Teenage Dragon
    A Novel
    Gabe Hudson
    978-0-375-71341-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 26, 2018
  • The Misfortune of Marion Palm
    The Misfortune of Marion Palm
    A Novel
    Emily Culliton
    978-0-525-43262-3
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 26, 2018
  • Saints for All Occasions
    Saints for All Occasions
    A novel
    J. Courtney Sullivan
    978-0-307-94980-6
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 29, 2018
  • Trajectory
    Trajectory
    Stories
    Richard Russo
    978-1-101-97198-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 03, 2018
  • Living in the Weather of the World
    Living in the Weather of the World
    Stories
    Richard Bausch
    978-0-525-43185-5
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 20, 2018
  • The Delight of Being Ordinary
    The Delight of Being Ordinary
    A Road Trip with the Pope and the Dalai Lama
    Roland Merullo
    978-1-101-97079-9
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 06, 2018
  • White Tears
    White Tears
    A novel
    Hari Kunzru
    978-1-101-97321-9
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 06, 2018
  • The Girl at the Baggage Claim
    The Girl at the Baggage Claim
    Explaining the East-West Culture Gap
    Gish Jen
    978-1-101-97206-9
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 16, 2018
  • Celine
    Celine
    A novel
    Peter Heller
    978-1-101-97348-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 02, 2018
  • Signals
    Signals
    New and Selected Stories
    Tim Gautreaux
    978-1-101-97251-9
    $17.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Dec 12, 2017
  • The Sleepwalker
    The Sleepwalker
    A Novel
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-8041-7099-4
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 03, 2017
  • A Gambler's Anatomy
    A Gambler's Anatomy
    A Novel
    Jonathan Lethem
    978-1-101-87367-0
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 05, 2017
  • The Tragedy of Brady Sims
    The Tragedy of Brady Sims
    Ernest J. Gaines
    978-0-525-43446-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 29, 2017
  • Bridget Jones's Baby
    Bridget Jones's Baby
    The Diaries
    Helen Fielding
    978-0-525-43388-0
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 25, 2017
  • Attic
    Attic
    Katherine Dunn
    978-0-525-43406-1
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 11, 2017
  • How to Set a Fire and Why
    How to Set a Fire and Why
    A Novel
    Jesse Ball
    978-1-101-91175-4
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 13, 2017
  • Break in Case of Emergency
    Break in Case of Emergency
    A Novel
    Jessica Winter
    978-1-101-91193-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 13, 2017
  • The Hopefuls
    The Hopefuls
    Jennifer Close
    978-1-101-91145-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 30, 2017
  • Bright, Precious Days
    Bright, Precious Days
    A Novel
    Jay McInerney
    978-1-101-97226-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 30, 2017
  • This Must Be the Place
    This Must Be the Place
    Maggie O'Farrell
    978-0-345-80472-3
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 16, 2017
  • The Pier Falls
    The Pier Falls
    And Other Stories
    Mark Haddon
    978-1-101-97013-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 02, 2017
  • Dear Fang, With Love
    Dear Fang, With Love
    A Novel
    Rufi Thorpe
    978-1-101-91157-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 18, 2017
  • Sweetbitter
    Sweetbitter
    Stephanie Danler
    978-1-101-91186-0
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 04, 2017
  • Honeymoon and Other Stories
    Honeymoon and Other Stories
    Kevin Canty
    978-0-525-43504-4
    $10.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Feb 22, 2017
  • Before the Wind
    Before the Wind
    A Novel
    Jim Lynch
    978-0-307-94935-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 21, 2017
  • Burning Down the House
    Burning Down the House
    A Novel
    Jane Mendelsohn
    978-1-101-91119-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 21, 2017
  • The Bed Moved
    The Bed Moved
    Stories
    Rebecca Schiff
    978-1-101-91085-6
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 07, 2017
  • The Guest Room
    The Guest Room
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-8041-7098-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 25, 2016
  • The Mare
    The Mare
    A Novel
    Mary Gaitskill
    978-0-307-74360-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 04, 2016
  • Sea Lovers
    Sea Lovers
    Selected Stories
    Valerie Martin
    978-0-307-73955-1
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
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    Aug 23, 2016
  • California Bloodstock
    California Bloodstock
    Terry McDonell
    978-0-525-43304-0
    $12.99 US
    Ebook
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    Aug 17, 2016
  • The Visiting Privilege
    The Visiting Privilege
    New and Collected Stories
    Joy Williams
    978-1-101-87371-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 09, 2016
  • The Captive Condition
    The Captive Condition
    A Novel
    Kevin P. Keating
    978-0-8041-6930-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 12, 2016
  • Days of Awe
    Days of Awe
    Lauren Fox
    978-0-307-38827-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 28, 2016
  • Our Souls at Night
    Our Souls at Night
    Kent Haruf, Alan Kent Haruf
    978-1-101-91192-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 28, 2016
  • The Jezebel Remedy
    The Jezebel Remedy
    Martin Clark
    978-0-8041-7290-5
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 14, 2016
  • A Cure for Suicide
    A Cure for Suicide
    A Novel
    Jesse Ball
    978-1-101-87213-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 14, 2016
  • A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me
    A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me
    Stories and a Novella
    David Gates
    978-0-8041-6874-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 19, 2016
  • Act of God
    Act of God
    A Novel
    Jill Ciment
    978-0-8041-6970-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 22, 2016
  • Crow Fair
    Crow Fair
    Stories
    Thomas McGuane
    978-0-345-80591-1
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 08, 2016
  • Voices in the Night
    Voices in the Night
    Steven Millhauser
    978-0-8041-6908-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 08, 2016
  • She Weeps Each Time You're Born
    She Weeps Each Time You're Born
    Quan Barry
    978-0-8041-7130-4
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 23, 2016
  • There's Something I Want You to Do
    There's Something I Want You to Do
    Stories
    Charles Baxter
    978-0-8041-7273-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 23, 2016
  • Lucky Alan
    Lucky Alan
    and Other Stories
    Jonathan Lethem
    978-1-101-87366-3
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 23, 2016
  • The Tusk That Did the Damage
    The Tusk That Did the Damage
    Tania James
    978-0-8041-7343-8
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 09, 2016
  • Single, Carefree, Mellow
    Single, Carefree, Mellow
    Katherine Heiny
    978-0-8041-7315-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 26, 2016
  • The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe
    The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe
    Romain Puertolas
    978-0-8041-7208-0
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 12, 2016
  • Beginners
    Beginners
    Raymond Carver
    978-0-307-94792-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 15, 2015

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