num_pages: 229
description: When Catherine Gehrig a museum conservator in London falls into grief after her lovers sudden death her boss gives her a special project. She will bring back to life a nineteenth-century mechanical bird. As she begins to piece together the automaton Catherine also uncovers the diaries of Henry Brandling who more than a hundred years prior had commissioned the bird for his very ill son. Catherine finds resonance and comfort in Henrys story but it is the mechanical creature itself in its uncanny imitation of life that will link these two people across a century. Through the clockwork bird Henry and Catherine will confront the mysteries of creation the power of human invention and the bodys astonishing chemistry of love and feeling.
language: English
title: The Chemistry of Tears
publisher: Alfred A. Knopf