The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey, Hamish Hamilton, $39.95
Grief is a popular subject in fiction at the moment and Peter Carey launches his latest on a river of tears stretching 150 years.
Catherine, a conservator at a modern-day London museum, is red-eyed and crippled with sorrow following the sudden death of her secret lover.
Henry, a 19th century English gentleman, is stricken to madness by the prospect of losing his adored young son to consumption.
They will never meet but these two grieving souls are united by their passion — you could say, obsession — for a rare and valuable automaton, a mechanical marvel in the shape of a beautiful bird.
It is Henry who commissions it, from a race of master clockmakers in Germany’s Black Forest; it is Catherine who finds both the pieces two centuries later — along with Henry’s diary — and takes on the job of reassembling it.
What starts as a distraction deepens into a mystery because this diverting plaything, as Catherine gradually discovers, is not at all what it seems.
The novel grows too, from a study of grief into a haunting story of love, science, and magic.
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