The Museum of You
CARYS BRAY

Carys Bray’s acclaimed debut novel, A Song for Issy Bradley, shone a light on the unfamiliar world of British Mormons. Bray drew on her Lancashire upbringing to give a hearteningly affectionate account of the faith’s eccentricities, faults and strengths. The novel showed a family struggling in the aftermath of a child’s death. For her follow-up, she has chosen more conventional material and a much smaller family unit, while still examining the painful drama of grief.

Clover Quinn and her dad Darren are barely coping after the death of Clover’s mum Becky. A baby at the time of the accident, Clover has no memories of her mother, whose belongings still litter the house. An inquisitive, diligent 12-year-old, Clover determines to collate and catalogue her mother’s things as if she were the curator of a museum; but this simple act has to be kept hidden from Darren, mired in catatonic grief.