Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies
31 March 2022Synopsis
Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize
Shortlisted: Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year - Goldsmiths Prize - Betty Trask Prize
Longlisted: Booker Prize - Dylan Thomas Prize
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a story of coming-of-age at the end of a life. Utterly heart-breaking yet darkly funny, Maddie Mortimer’s debut is a journey through one woman’s body: a celebration of desire, forgiveness, and the darkness within us all.
‘Original, memorable, shimmering’ - Sarah Moss, author of Ghost Wall
Lia has only one child, Iris; her magical, awkward, endlessly creative daughter who has just entered the battleground of her teenage years. Lia and Iris have always been close, but there is a war playing out inside Lia’s body, too, and everything is about to change. As she confronts what might be the end, memories of her own childhood and a passionate love affair come rushing into her present, unearthing buried secrets and her family’s deepest fears. But Lia hopes: for more time, for more love, for more Iris.
Dancing between voices within Lia’s body and without, flitting back and forth in time, this sweeping, dazzling story of a life and what it is to let go marks the arrival of an extraordinary novelist.
'Restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive' - The Guardian
‘Extraordinary, kaleidoscopic’ - Daisy Johnson
Details
31 March 2022
9781529069396Reviews
Ambitious, sprawling . . . brings to mind Eimear McBride's A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing . . . restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive . . . sharply funnyGuardian
Here is a book to dance and sing about. An extraordinary, kaleidoscopic dive into languageDaisy Johnson, Man Booker-shortlisted author of Everything, Under
Lyrical and beautiful, this is a novel unlike anything elseStylist
An original and memorable novel written in shimmering prose. The characters stayed with me long after I’d finished readingSarah Moss, Women's Prize-shortlisted author of Ghost Wall and Summerwater
