When Catherine's lover dies suddenly, she has no one to turn to - their affair had been disguised from their colleagues and his family - except her work. A middle-aged curator in a London museum, Catherine is given a very particular project by the perceptive head of her department: a box of intricate clockwork parts that appear to be the remains of a nineteenth century automaton - a beautifully made mechanical bird. When she discovers that the box also contains the diary of the man who commissioned the machine, she is partially rescued from one obsession by another - who were Henry Brandling and the mysterious, visionary clockmaker he hired to make a gift for his absent son? And what was the end result that now sits in pieces in her studio? The Chemistry of Tears is both wildly entertaining and deeply moving, a portrait of love and loss that is simultaneously delicate and anarchic. At its heart is an image only the masterful Peter Carey could breath such life into - an object made of equal parts magic, art and science, a delight that contains the seeds of our age's downfall.

Dimensions:

Similar items

• • 

  • Shack

    Simon Griffiths

    Hardback | Lantern

    $39.95

• • 

  • A Brilliant Touch

    Christobel Mattingley

    Hardback | National Library of Australia

    $29.95

• • 

  • The Celebrated George Barrington

    Nathan Garvey

    Hardback | Houghton Mifflin

    $64.00

• • 

  • The Many Lives of Kenneth Myer

    Sue Ebury

    Hardback | Melbourne University Press

    $60.00

• • 

  • 21st Century Houses Downunder

    Mark Cleary

    Hardback | Images Publishing

    $50.00