In an unusual way to start a book, a reader might turn first to Lauren Draper's acknowledgements. They reveal a generous, kind, thoughtful voice, one which is sustained on each page of her debut novel.
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Draper began writing stories when she was six years old, and this novel in 2019. If classifying novels were helpful to readers, we could call this a coming-of-age book, in which the heroine confronts moral, sexual and family challenges (a few at school as well). The setting is a coastal country town, reflecting Draper's growing up "mostly on land but often in water".
Draper's heroine, Clarissa, has moved to the beach from a larger, louder city, with "more than one coffee shop on each block and four full bars of reception". By contrast, she had landed in a down-at-heel high school where "everybody knows everybody, and nobody wants new friends".
The novel is framed around two secrets, one sententiously titled "The Terrible Thing That Happened" (to Clarissa in her recent past), the other a book containing a secret compartment full of poisons bequeathed by her surgeon grandmother. Both secrets are progressively unravelled, as though Draper were playing with a pair of Russian dolls.
Clarissa narrates in the present tense, a technique which draws the reader into the frictions and tensions of adolescence. She has a lot to say about grief, sexuality and, especially, first love. Clarissa's manner of address is neither theatrical nor polemical; she simply copes, more or less, with one problem after another. Her creator is excellent at capturing dialogue among teenagers, just as memorable at evoking a first kiss.
Like so much of the South Coast, or many of Tim Winton's stories, Draper's beach can seem quite idyllic. In contrast to our customarily hackneyed place names (Surf Beach, Ocean View), Draper's town rejoices in a back beach evocatively called The Swells. Diving down under a swell, Clarissa discovers "just me and sea - everything above the water glows, fragments of sunlight and sky". Evading the resident shark, she is then rescued by the school hunk, who turns out to be sensitive and smart as well as ruggedly handsome.
Critics might argue that Draper takes some time to come to the point, occasionally labouring Clarissa's agonised self-appraisals. Surely, though, teenagers are entitled to a bit of introspection. After all, the stakes for them - in exams which matter, the strains of growing up, the complexity in dealing with quite new problems - are distinctly higher than for grown-ups.
The Museum of Broken Things is an admirably candid, honest and reflective account. Draper has wrestled with this story for years, and should now be warmly encouraged to write a few more as well.
