A Robot in the Garden

In Install’s charming first novel, Ben Chambers is a failed veterinary student who is also failing at his marriage. He seems content to drift through life until the day a robot shows up in his suburban London garden, lost, dented, and obviously in need of repair. When Ben exhibits more interest in the robot, called Tang, than he does in his wife, Amy, she walks out on him; Ben decides that he’s going to bring Tang back to his place of origin to be repaired, wherever that might be. It’s a journey that takes Ben and Tang from London to San Francisco, Houston, Tokyo, and, finally, Micronesia, where Tang is reunited with his owner, who turns out to be something of a mad cyberneticist. Returning with Tang to London, Ben finds that there have been big changes during his absence. For one thing, Amy is with another man, a blowhard surgeon named Roger. But thanks to Tang, Amy sees something in Ben that wasn’t there before and forces them to face up to the shortcomings in their marriage. As a novel, this story can’t quite make up its mind what it wants to be: a domestic drama, a globe-hopping picaresque, an odd couple comedy, or a fable about what it means to be human. Despite an overly busy narrative, the novel compensates with characters that, whether they are carbon based or cybernetic, never fail to engage the readers’ sympathy and win our hearts with their humanity. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency, Inc. (May)