Carey (Parrot & Olivier in America, 2010) is a bewitching storyteller preternaturally attuned to our endless struggles over love and eccentric obsessions. In this fairy tale within a fairy tale rife with historical and literary allusions, Catherine, a horologist (an expert in the science and instruments of measuring time) on the staff of a London museum, is mad with grief after the sudden death of her married lover and struggles to focus on the new restoration project her sympathetic boss hopes will comfort her. She does become enthralled by the notebooks of Henry Brandling, a wealthy nineteenth-century Englishman who went to Germany to commission an automaton for his ailing son, only to come under the spell of Sumper, a hulking, vehement inventor who may be a thief, brute, genius, or all three. As she unfolds Henry’s mysterious ordeal, Catherine meticulously reconstructs Sumper’s elaborate, mechanized wonder, work complicated by her increasing fears about her possibly deranged assistant. Set during the Gulf oil crisis and reminiscent of The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007) in its linkage of a rescued automaton and loneliness, Carey’s gripping, if at times overwrought, fable raises provocative questions about life, death, and memory and our power to create and destroy. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Two-time Booker Prize winner Carey’s sterling reputation, a hefty first printing, and the novel’s echo of the book behind the Oscar-winning film Hugo make this a hot title. --Donna Seaman
“Few writers manage so consistently and delightfully as Peter Carey to conjure wondrous scenes populated with idiosyncratic yet credible characters.
The Chemistry of Tears does not disappoint . . . Carey is one of the finest living writers in English. His best books satisfy both intellectually and emotionally; he is lyrical yet never forgets the imperative to entertain . . . A wholly enjoyable journey.”
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The Economist (UK)
“Characters that beguile and convince, prose that dances or is as careful as poetry, an inventive plot that teases and makes the heart quicken or hurt, paced with masterly precision, yet with a space for the ideas to breathe and expand in dialogue with the reader, unusual settings of place and time: this tender tour de force of the imagination succeeds on all fronts.”
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The Independent (UK)
“A powerful novel on the frailty of the human body and the emotional life we imbue in machines . . . 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.”
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Publishers Weekly (starred, pick of the week)
“Carey’s exceptional storytelling talents are all on prominent display here. Catherine’s and Henry’s voices are lustily generated and expertly distinguished from one another; contemporary London and 19th-century Germany are conveyed in lightly distributed yet powerfully evocative physical detail; both narratives are invigorated throughout by a thrilling verbal energy, and an almost unfailing knack for alighting on the
mot juste. These are precisely the qualities that have always characterised Carey’s novels, and which have twice made him an eminently deserving winner of the Booker Prize.”
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The Observer (UK)
“Carey’s world is always interesting and thought-provoking . . . It is a unique combination of raw human passion and complicated puzzling about human ingenuity . . . Completely convincing.”
—A. S. Byatt,
Financial Times (UK)
“Carey’s latest book is just as beautifully written and entertaining as its predecessors. Written in his signature style, moving and witty at the same time, his narrative takes hold right from the beginning and maintains its pace throughout . . . Profoundly moving but leavened with Carey’s characteristic whimsical humour together with his refined and polished narrative style, this is a most delightful read.”
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The Chronicle (Australia)
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The Chemistry of Tears isn’t only about life and inventiveness: it overflows with them.”
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Sunday Times (UK)
“An excellent novel . . . The appeal of science might lie in its promise to solve the world’s most difficult problems, but Carey’s achievement with
The Chemistry of Tears is, by means of a story about science, to depict our most taxing problems in their full insolubility.”
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The National“Carey [demonstrates] the same easy-seeming mastery that he shows in all his novels. But here the fluency seems especially apt, because it is always devoted to the service of machines that themselves depend on being cunningly assembled and delightful. In other words, there is an immaculate fit of means with themes.”
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The Guardian (UK)
“A tender novel of secrets, sorrow, and heartache . . . Carey writes like a dream. His twelfth novel is a compelling cocktail or beautiful prose, emotional complexity, and impressive ingenuity.”
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The Express (UK)
“Beautifully made, entertaining, and comic . . . A story that’s as ingenious as any piece of clockwork.”
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Irish Independent “I loved this book . . . It is not an exaggeration to say that Peter Carey has given new meaning to the term ‘historical fiction’ . . . Impressively, he continues to produce another masterclass every couple of years.”
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Daily Telegraph (UK)
“A beautifully elegiac hymn to lost love . . . Audacious yet restrained, tender yet sardonic, and filled with moments of emotional complexity.”
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Australian Book Review
“Wonderful . . . This deeply moving, intellectually profound novel on the heartbreaking grief of ‘living machines’ tells the story of the essential human desire to return to the individual Edens that we inhabited before we knew about the unavoidable pain of our mechanical lives . . . Beautifully told.”
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Nature
“This is a brilliant book, full of secrets, mystery, grief and love . . . Impossible to put down.”
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Sunday Mail (Brisbane, Australia)
