The Chemistry of Tears

Catherine

Dead, and no one told me. I walked past his office and his assistant was bawling.

“What is it Felicia?”
“Oh haven’t you heard? Mr. Tindall’s dead.”

What I heard was: “Mr. Tindall hurt his head.” I thought, for God’s sake, pull yourself together.

“Where is he, Felicia?” That was a reckless thing to ask. Matthew Tindall and I had been lovers for thirteen years, but he was my secret and I was his. In real life I avoided his assistant.

Now her lipstick was smeared and her mouth folded like an ugly sock. “Where is he?” she sobbed. “What an awful, awful question.”

I did not understand. I asked again.

“Catherine, he is dead,” and thus set herself off into a second fit of bawling.

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September 1919: Twenty-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver some letters to Marian Bancroft. During the Great War, Tristan fought alongside Marian’s brother Will who, in 1917, laid down his gun on the battlefield, declared himself a conscientious objector and was shot as a traitor, an act which brought shame and dishonour on the Bancroft family. But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan’s visit. He holds a secret deep in his soul. One that he is desperate to unburden himself of to Marian, if he can only find the courage.

1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?

A young solider commits a terrible act out of rage and hurt, then spends the next sixty years paying for it.

2. How long did it take you to write this book?

Two years.

3. Where is your favorite place to write?

At home, in my office, overlooking the garden, with the dog asleep by my feet.

4. How do you choose your characters’ names?

Often, I scan my bookshelves and name them after writers.

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The Street Sweeper is honest, hypnotic and redemptive. It explores the responsibility of the historian, the weight of history on all of us, and the crucial role that bearing witness plays in breaking the cycle of human cataclysm.

From the civil rights struggle in the United States to the crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau, there are momentous stories everywhere. But only some survive to become history.

1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?

The Street Sweeper, in dealing with memory, love, guilt, heroism, the extremes of racism, and unexpected kindness, spans the twentieth century to the present and the globe from New York, to Melbourne, Chicago to Auschwitz.

2. How long did it take you to write this book?

It took about 5 1/2 years to write The Street Sweeper.

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