The Chemistry of Tears

By: Peter Carey

Narrated by: Susan Lyons, Jefferson Mays

When Catherine's secret lover dies suddenly, she has nowhere to turn to except her work. A middle-aged curator in a London museum, Catherine is given a very particular project: a box of intricate clockwork parts that appear to be the remains of a 19th century automaton - a beautifully made mechanical bird. When she discovers the diary of the man who commissioned the machine, she is partially rescued from one obsession by another: who was 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.

©2012 Peter Carey. By arrangement with Penguin Group (Australia). (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

unpleasant

What disappointed you about The Chemistry of Tears?

As ever the Peter Carey's prose is very good but the story is affected, the characters unpleasant. Frankly it is boring.