The Chemistry of Tears - Softcover

Carey, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571279988 ISBN 13: 9780571279982

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2012

Synopsis

An automaton, a man and a woman who can never meet, a secret love story, and the fate of the warming world are all brought to incandescent life in this hauntingly moving novel from one of the finest writers of our time.

London 2011, Catherine Gehrig, conservator at the Swinburne museum, learns of the unexpected death of her colleague and lover of thirteen years. As the mistress of a married man she has to grieve in private. One other person knows their secret, the director of the museum, who arranges for Catherine to be given a special project away from prying eyes. Mad with grief, the usually controlled and rational Catherine discovers a series of handwritten notebooks telling the story of the man who originally commissioned the extraordinary and eerie automata she has been asked to bring back to life.

With a precocious new assistant, Amanda, at her side, she starts to piece together both the clockwork puzzle and the story of the mechanical creature which was commissioned in 19th century Germany by an English man, Henry Brandling, as a 'magical amusement' for his consumptive son. Having been asked to leave his home by his wife, Henry turns his hurtful departure into an adventure that he records for his young child. But it is Catherine Gehrig, in a strangely stormy and overheated London nearly two hundred years later, who will find comfort and wonder in reading Henry's story. And it is the automata, in its beautiful, uncanny imitation of life, that will link two strangers confronted with the mysteries of life and death, the miracle and catastrophe of human invention and the body's astonishing chemistry of love and feeling.

About this title

Review

Praise for Peter Carey Two-time Winner of the Booker Prize Finalist for the International Man Booker Prize Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Five-time Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award "Carey is a master craftsman, a comedian of the first order, an artist with an uncanny gift for the invention of situations that are bizarre yet believable. And as a double Booker Prize winner he doesn't have to prove anything to anyone--he has a licence to enjoy himself, and he does." --"Irish Independent" " " "Peter Carey is a wily seducer, a mental acrobat who can bound across continents and centuries and make us believe in whatever world he has discovered and imagined." --Paul Auster "Carey is a writer I prize not only for his remarkable Dickensian plots but also for the brilliance of his style.... He is the most exuberant stylist at work in English today." --Edmund White, "Daily Telegraph"

Book Description

Following the recent success of Parrot and Olivier in America comes another wonderfully rich tale with historical themes from the twice Booker-winner.

Edition details

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0571279988
• ISBN 13: 9780571279982
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288