McNulty, who is now 25, is a golden child. Not just figuratively. She literally shines. Overflowing with positivity, but never in any of the many clichéd senses of the word, she is almost too good to be true. She has two tattoos for example, but they are the most modest tattoos you've ever seen – they are clearly not for the viewer. The one is a tiny heart on her left hand to remind her to be always filled with love. The other is an only slightly larger shooting star on her right hand to remind her how fortunate she is.

It's this driving sense of self-belief that is the engine behind McNulty's first novel. And unlike the Miss South Africa episode, her brains and sass get to take centre stage. Set in the hottest summer Durban has ever endured, Strange Nervous Laughter chronicles the paths six disparate individuals take in their quests for love. Fuelled by an emotionally expressive magical realism, McNulty explores the web of connections and misconnections between her various characters with candour and an apparent sense of romance that is perpetually dashed against the rocks of black comedy.

Bridget is a friend of mine, so it is tempting to say that she has written a masterpiece. But that would be to damn her with false praise. Instead, I can say that Strange Nervous Laughter is a confident debut novel that suggests that McNulty might indeed one day produce a masterpiece. It contains a great deal of beautiful writing, is rich with moving imagery, and has a gentle but persistently driving plot. And despite the inherent smallness of its characters' lives, it is utterly gripping.

While she gives many of her characters an intensity of emotion that is self-consciously melodramatic in their construction of their romantic lives, she is skilled at conveying the real emotion that lies beneath through use of narrative and imagery. One of her characters, Beth, for example, is super-obsessed with finding the right man, and McNulty takes us into her thoughts, but her emotional state when high on love is most accurately expressed by the fact that she floats a few inches above the ground. Similarly, the iridescent pearls cried by another character, Aisha, whose dreams have overtaken her waking life, are movingly delicate expressions of sadness.

Other characters include Mdu, a former golden boy, who abandons the expectations of others to commune with whales. There is Harry who lives on the edge of a dump, eats only green food for an extended period in order to get into the Guinness Book of Record, and exudes a smell that attracts all broken objects to him. Meryl is a bitter bisexual woman who has corseted herself up against a past laden with rejection, and Pravesh is a victim of mollycoddling parents, who can sense death in all its forms, and works in a funeral parlour. This motley crew are all tied together by a single event - an armed robbery that takes place in a local green grocer.

But while the book features contemporary characters in a contemporary setting, their concerns are not bound to this time and place but are far more universal. The great success of Strange Nervous Laughter is that its characters are timeless, and what begins in the intricate specificity of Durban and its 21st century surrounds, ends up taking on the dimensions of myth.

McNulty says that she wanted to write for people who normally wouldn't read, people like her best friend (a teacher and a former English student who doesn't read!). The reality is that most people don't buy books or read books, and McNulty would like them to do so, beginning with her effervescently readable debut. Having studied creative writing in America (on a full scholarship – another example of her profound determination reaping its rewards), rather than a degree in English, McNulty's focus is far more on the act of writing, than it is on the theory and history of literature. She is unashamed of the fact that she isn't fully versed in the literary canon, but instead reads what she wants to read. She stresses the importance of having a good editor, and of economy of words, and tells me – with only a hint of presumptuousness – that someone should tell Salman Rushdie that his books are great but overwritten and about a third too long.

We talk about the act of writing, and how much of it is taking things apart and putting them together again and fiddling and polishing. And, together we wonder if anyone really just writes straight into finished form. I say that Jack Kerouac definitely did, but at the same time acknowledge that perhaps if he had allowed himself the luxury of substantive editing, he may have been made a little more welcome in the literary canon, and the enormous beauty of the best of his writing may have made its way into the rest of it.
McNulty, on the other hand, says that she hopes her publishers have destroyed her original draft, and gives much credit to Willemien de Villiers at Oshun (an imprint of Struik) for taking on the "formidable task of unmuddling my words".
In an appended thank you sheet, which was inserted into my copy of the book, McNulty says that the book is dedicated to all those who know that only great love will do. I ask her if any of her characters in the book get to experience the great love of which she speaks. She is not sure. The book is slightly open-ended and it's possible that at least two of the characters do genuinely connect in a love that transcends their neuroses and self-imposed limitations. But the book's multiple narratives warns us of the dangers of imposing love on our lives instead of living our lives with love.

McNulty will soon be getting down to writing that difficult second novel, and although now living in Cape Town, it seems likely that it will once again be set in Durban, which has, she says, more interesting locations to write about. She will know doubt face that particular challenge head-on with confidence, faith and grace, but before that she has other fish to fry. Or more accurately a cookie to bake.

Inspired by her character Harry's attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records, McNulty has decided that she is going to bake the world's largest cupcake. She has contacted the Book of Records people, and no one has ever submitted a cupcake claim before but they are willing to create the category. And so, on the 15th of December, McNulty will officially be making the world's largest cupcake, giving all proceeds from the event to an orphanage.

The event will no doubt play out like a little one of the scenes from Strange Nervous Laughter. And by that, I don't mean that it will be filled with desperate misguided love. Instead, it will it will be tinged with the gently pulsing magic that fills both the book, and the life of Bridget McNulty.

Strange Nervous Laughter is available at all good book stores.