Peter Carey's latest novel, due out at the end of this month, is an epic tale of love, loss, magic and science, set in the intricate world of London's museums and clockmakers.
As one of Australia's most lauded novelists (True History of the Kelly Gang, Theft, Oscar and Lucinda), any new book by Peter Carey is truly something to look forward to, and his latest, The Chemistry of Tears, has already been hailed as one of the most anticipated releases of 2012.
Right on the heels of Parrot and Olivier in America, The Chemistry of Tears again traces a similar theme of echoes between the past and the present (this time between modern London and nineteenth-century Germany). The novel begins with Catherine, a horologist at London's Swinburne Museum, and the sudden death of her married lover. Forced to grieve in private, she throws herself into her work, and is given a project restoring what remains of a mysterious nineteenth-century automaton - a mechanical bird created visionary clockmaker Henry Brandling as a gift to his ailing son.
We can expect perhaps the usual doses of loss, sadness and restoration here, but, knowing Carey, the story will be filled out and amplified by his usual brilliant observations, emotional weight and uncanny sense of narrative style.
