The Museum of Broken Promises by Elizabeth Buchan

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Corvus; Main edition (2 April 2020)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1786495317
• ISBN-13: 978-1786495310

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Synopsis

Inside lies a treasure trove of objects – a baby’s shoe, a wedding veil, a railway ticket – all revealing moments of loss and betrayal. It is a place where people come to speak to the ghosts of the past. The owner, Laure, is also one of those people.

As a young woman in the 1980s Laure fled to Prague, where her life changed forever. Now, years later, she must confront the origins of her heart-breaking exhibition: a love affair with a dissident musician, a secret life behind the Iron Curtain, and a broken promise that she will never forget.

 

Review

The Museum of Broken Promises is Laure’s story, told through a split time line between the present day Paris, Prague in 1986 with a small stop off in Berlin in 1996. The Museum is a collection of donated objects, all telling the story of the broken promises made to their owners. Included is a train ticket from 1986, the ticket meant for Laure’s first love, Tomas, who didn’t turn up. This is such a beautiful story of a doomed first love affair, communist Prague and the stories of all those who have felt the pain of promises broken.

I do love a book with a split timeline, it gives an opportunity to see the central character, in this case Laure, at different times in her life, and the how time changes them. Present day Laure is single, living in Paris and curator of the museum, and it’s wonderful objects. She comes across as guarded, distrustful and detached, all symptoms of her past, in particular her time in Prague. At twenty years old she finds herself in communist Prague, working as an au pair for Petr and Eva Kobe looking after  their two children. Whilst there she meets Tomas, a musician in a band who are seen as subversive by the communist regime. Laure is young, naive and in the heat of first love, full of passion and longing, but finds her life in danger by association. Doomed from the beginning, it is this experience that shapes the rest of her life; her job in Berlin and the idea of the museum itself.

Elizabeth Buchan writes such a beautiful and heartbreaking story. She captures those feelings of first love, the passion, the all encompassing feeling of longing and the object of your love being the centre of your world, a feeling of being invincible; no one forgets their first love. Prague in 1986 is a place of danger, a place where you are followed and reported to the communist party. Elizabeth Buchan’s historical research shows life behind the Iron Curtain, the brutality of the regime and how it oppressed those who questioned it. This adds a dark side to the story, that taints Laure’s first experience of love.

My favourite part of this book was the stories behind some of the objects, the embroidered pillowcase with the drops of blood, that broke my heart and the wedding veil. The different objects show how we deal with promises broken and the emotions these objects bring out. It maybe a fictional museum but I think it would be wonderful in real life.

The Museum of Broken Promises is a wonderous and emotive read. The love story at the centre is full of passion, heat and idealism, but in reality it is doomed and has a darkness stalking it, that continues to follow Laure through life. The evocative prose and historical detail draw you in and add to the atmosphere of the plot both in the past and present. An extraordinarily powerful read.