PublishedPenguin, November 2012 |
ISBN9780143568551 |
FormatSoftcover, 288 pages |
Dimensions19.9cm × 13.5cm × 1.9cm |
A new edition of Peter Carey's The Chemistry of Tears, with a cover by Michael Leunig When her lover dies suddenly, all Catherine has left is her work. In an act of compassion her manager at London's Swinburne Museum gives her a very particular project- a box of intricate clockwork parts that constitute a nineteenth-century automaton, a beautiful mechanical bird.
It's an object made of equal parts magic, love, madness and science, a delight that contains the seeds of our age's downfall. Once Catherine discovers the diary of the man who commissioned it, one obsession merges into another.