Chemistry for Beginners

Is true love simply a chemical equation? Dr. Steven J. Fisher thinks he has love down to an exact science. A brilliant young biochemist whose closest friend is a bonobo ape named Lucy, Dr. Fisher spends his time in an Oxford research lab studying orgasms—watching them, listening to them, analyzing them—in his quest to find the first cure for female sexual dysfunction, a Viagra-like pull for women. But for all his candor about human sexuality in the lab, he is really a shy chemist, a beginner in the ways of love. Dr. Fisher and his research team are just weeks away from launching the drug when Annie—a brilliant (but orgasmically challenged) Ph.D. student—joins his study as a test subject. For the first time, Dr. Fisher’s results don’t seem to add up. And as he and Annie bond over IP addresses and romantic poetry, Bunsen burner-lit meals created through molecular gastronomy, Pink Floyd, and sessions of Swamps and Sorcerers, he has to ask himself, What scientific hypothesis can explain this new data—let alone the change in his own feelings? A sweet, witty romantic comedy that takes in everything from evolutionary theory to the odd/even rule of Star Trek movies, Chemistry for Beginners gets to the heart of how men and women view each other—and shows us that sometimes even simple biology is all about chemistry.