This story includes descriptions of sexual assault that may be distressing to some readers.
Most Australians know Grace Tame by name.
They know part of her story. They've heard about how she was groomed and repeatedly sexually assaulted by her teacher when she was just 15 years old. They've heard how she gathered the strength to disclose the abuse. How later, she stayed strong and continued to fight back, time, and time again, in a system that was designed to silence her. And how she gave up her own anonymity to give a voice to the voiceless.
They've seen the headlines. The #LetHerSpeak. They've watched Grace accept the Australian of the Year Award and giggled at that photo opportunity with former prime minister Scott Morrison.
But that's only a fraction of Grace's story. One piece in the kaleidoscope that makes up one of the most impressive young women in Australia.
Grace is also a daughter, a granddaughter, and a niece. She's a fiancé. A best friend and confidant.
She's a 27-year-old who has experienced a million different lives in her short time on earth. She's laughed and lost and experienced highs and lows so extreme they almost seem ripped from a Hollywood script.
Image: Pan Macmillan Australia.
In her new book, The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner: A Memoir, Grace is finally telling her own story on her own terms. Her own truth. The good, the bad, and the sure to make headlines.
The book, which tells the story of Grace's life from childhood until now, is set to be the memoir of the year and the book everyone you know is going to be talking about.
In the opening pages of The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner, Grace introduces us to her family. A matriarchy full of strong, resilient, loving women who work hard and laugh harder. Who swim in the ocean even in the middle of the Tasmanian winter and will do anything to protect their kids.
"When I asked Mum and her sisters separately where they think their strength comes from, they each told a different story that nevertheless wound up at the same conclusion: each other," she writes. "Solidarity. And lots of love. A bit of drama, too. Just a bit."
In these opening chapters two things become clear: Grace Tame comes from a long line of fierce women, and she has an uncanny ability to see beauty and strength in everything around her.
Throughout the pages of the book, Grace tells her story with relentless honesty and a biting humour that will have you laughing out loud in the most unexpected places.
She's able to reflect on things she experienced as a child, both good and bad, and draw a link between those incidents and what came next. With heart and humour, and emotional intelligence well beyond her years, Grace tells the reader about how she was molested by an older kid when she was only a child, and how her teenage years were punctuated by a battle with anorexia. How as an adult she would discover that she was on the spectrum and also be diagnosed with ADHD, and how all of these factors combined made her a perfect target for her abuser.
She explains that it's only now, with the advantage of space and time, that she's able to understand her own trauma; "You can't carry the baggage and unpack it all at once".
With incredible insight, she's able to pull together the pieces of her own puzzle, to look back over all the parts of her life and reflect on how they've made her the woman she is today. A survivor. An advocate. A hilariously, fierce woman who won't be silenced any longer.
Throughout the memoir, Grace introduces the reader to all the people who have passed through her life, either briefly or in it for the long haul. Like her best friend Dom, who knew her even before she did. And her friend Christian, who she didn't realise she was in love with until his life was cut short in a tragic accident. And Jorge, an old Portuguese man with one tooth who she lived with in a ramshackle share house in Portugal one summer, and who inspired the name of the memoir.
"Although he was asset poor, Jorge was story rich. He really had lived nine lives, or thereabouts," she writes. "Jorge's irreverent authenticity helped reinforce for me what is truly important in life, and what has genuine value. People. Places. Experiences. Love. And connection."
Image: Pan Macmillan Australia.
Grace's memoir is a reminder that no one's life is defined by one experience. Below the headlines is a multi-faceted, emotionally intelligent woman whose ninth life is only just beginning.
Her abuse doesn't define her life, and her abuser does not get to own her story.
In fact, the man who repeatedly sexually assaulted Grace as a teenager only takes up a small portion of the memoir, among all the stories of the brilliantly loving, strong and supportive people who have touched her life.
And one day, hopefully, he won't be included in her story at all.
As Grace writes in the memoir, "And there will be more books that don't mention his name than those that do. My life is just beginning."
The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner is a brilliantly written, surprisingly funny and wildly unexpected memoir that you need to add to your must read list immediately.
The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner: A Memoir by Grace Tame (RRP $49.99) is published by Pan Macmillan, and now available in all good bookstores.
Feature Image: Pan Macmillan Australia.
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