The Chemistry of Tears

In this dual narration of a novel that shifts in time, Susan Lyons and Jefferson Mays bring equal parts pragmatism and emotional complexity to 21st-century horologist (timepiece expert) Catherine Gehrig and nineteenth-century father Henry Brandling. In the earlier time period, Brandling is hoping to cheer his ailing son by commissioning an automaton. In the later time period, Catherine is dealing with her life-shattering grief over the sudden death of her longtime (married) lover. Given the task of assembling Brandling's mechanical clock, Catherine grows obsessed with the man's diaries. Mays brings credible desperation to the character of Brandling, who has already lost one child to illness. As the story shifts in time, Lyons makes Catherine's sorrow palpable. Secondary characters are completely plausible, occasionally ominous, and absolutely fascinating. Peter Carey's novel goes beyond exploring the nature of love and grief to offer a scathing commentary on our reliance on technology to solve all problems. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Starred review from April 23, 2012
After the sudden death of her married lover, London museum conservator Catherine Gehrig channels her grief into the task of restoring a 19th-century automaton, in Carey’s powerful novel on the frailty of the human body and the emotional life we imbue in machines. Catherine, a horologist at the Swinburne Museum, and curator Matthew Tindall carried on a secret affair for 13 years. After Matthew dies of a heart attack, Catherine’s boss assigns her a project in the Swinburne Annex, away from the gossip. Numb with heartache, she’s uncharacteristically uninterested in opening eight sealed tea chests until the day of her lover’s funeral, when she discovers inside the chests 11 notebooks filled by Englishman Henry Brandling in 1854. The narrative then shifts to Henry’s point-of-view with his discovery of the inventor Vaucanson’s plans for a mechanical duck, just the thing, Henry thinks, to make his young consumptive son, Percy, happy. He travels to Germany in search of a master clockmaker, and Carey (Parrot and Olivier in America) alternates between present-day Catherine’s progress with repairing the avian automaton and Henry’s notebooks, about which Catherine becomes more obsessed as Henry meets a mysterious and potentially dangerous craftsman who promises to build him his “heart’s desire.” Catherine and Henry, linked both by the automaton and by grief, ponder questions of life and death, questions that, as posed by Carey, are more fascinating than any solution. Agent: Amada Urban, ICM.