In two-time Booker Prize winner Peter Carey’s latest novel, an automaton --- in its beautiful, uncanny imitation of life --- will link two strangers confronted with the mysteries of creation, the miracle and catastrophe of human invention, and the body’s astonishing chemistry of love and feeling.

A tour de force of historical improvisation and vocal acrobatics, Peter Carey’s novel looks at postrevolutionary France and America through the eyes of two unforgettable narrators: Olivier and Parrot. The result is a vivid counterpoint and two wildly divergent perspectives on the same tumultuous period. It is also the story of a most unlikely friendship between a French lord and an English servant.