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Longlisted for the Booker Prize Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 'Original, memorable, shimmering' - Sarah Moss 'Restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive' - The Guardian Something gleeful and malevolent is moving in Lia's body, learning her life from the inside out. A shape-shifter. A disaster tourist. It's travelling down the banks of her canals. It's spreading. When a sudden diagnosis upends Lia's world, the boundaries between her past and her present begin to collapse. Deeply buried secrets stir awake. As the voice prowling in Lia takes hold of her story, and the landscape around becomes indistinguishable from the one within, Lia and her family are faced with some of the hardest questions of all: how can we move on from the events that have shaped us, when our bodies harbour everything? And what does it mean to die with grace, when you're simply not ready to let go? 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 astonishing debut is a symphonic journey through one woman's body: a wild and lyrical celebration of desire, forgiveness, and the darkness within us all.
Longlisted for the Booker Prize Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 'Original, memorable, shimmering' - Sarah Moss 'Restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive' - The Guardian Something gleeful and malevolent is moving in Lia's body, learning her life from the inside out. A shape-shifter. A disaster tourist. It's travelling down the banks of her canals. It's spreading. When a sudden diagnosis upends Lia's world, the boundaries between her past and her present begin to collapse. Deeply buried secrets stir awake. As the voice prowling in Lia takes hold of her story, and the landscape around becomes indistinguishable from the one within, Lia and her family are faced with some of the hardest questions of all: how can we move on from the events that have shaped us, when our bodies harbour everything? And what does it mean to die with grace, when you're simply not ready to let go? 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 astonishing debut is a symphonic journey through one woman's body: a wild and lyrical celebration of desire, forgiveness, and the darkness within us all.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
About the Author-
Maddie Mortimer was born in London in 1996. She received her BA in English Literature from the University of Bristol. Her writing has featured in The Times and her short films have screened at festivals around the world. In 2019 she completed the Faber Academy Writing a Novel course. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is her first novel.
Reviews-
Lydia Wilson and Tamsin Greig deliver complementary performances to tell the story of Lia, a British woman whose cancer has just come out of remission. Wilson narrates the sections of the novel from Lia's perspective, jumping back and forth from Lia's adolescence when she was growing up the daughter of a minister to the present when she is battling her cancer once again. Between Lia's sections, Greig performs interludes from the perspective of Lia's cancer, perfectly capturing the disease's wry narrative voice as it remarks on the changes in Lia's body. Wilson and Geig's two performances work in harmony, giving listeners an emotionally intimate listening experience. K.D.W. � AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Sunday Times
Here is a book to dance and sing about. An extraordinary, kaleidoscopic dive into language
Daisy Johnson, Man Booker-shortlisted author of Everything, Under
An original and memorable novel written in shimmering prose. The characters stayed with me long after I'd finished reading
Sarah Moss, Women's Prize-shortlisted author of Ghost Wall and Summerwater
A beautiful novel about death that feels completely alive, pulsing with tenderness and wit
Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Sunday Times bestselling author of The MerciesRemarkable . . . A tearjerker, but it's hopeful too . . . Brave, inventive and mature
Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From and The HarpyLyrical and beautiful, this is a novel unlike anything else
Emma Stonex, Sunday Times bestselling author of The LamplightersStriking . . . formally inventive . . . Sadness is not allowed to crowd out wit and joy
i newspaper
It may move between different styles and moods, but underpinning it all is the book's bursting energy and, in the face of death, its verve for life
Good Housekeeping
This is a touching, eye-opening perspective on life and illness like you've never read before
Booklist (starred)
Using word placement, font, and shape to create images on the page, Mortimer deepens the reader's engagement with the story and characters . . . Through breathtaking attention to detail, Mortimer crafts a stunning novel that touches on the expanses one life can contain
Straits Times
Maddie Mortimer's dazzling debut novel about a woman with breast cancer is a life-affirming read - all the more so because of its proximity to death . . . While there are many books that explore these themes, it is rare to find one that does so in such an immersive and harrowing way
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Pan Macmillan
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Lydia Wilson and Tamsin Greig deliver complementary performances to tell the story of Lia, a British woman whose cancer has just come out of remission. Wilson narrates the sections of the novel from Lia's perspective, jumping back and forth from Lia's adolescence when she was growing up the daughter of a minister to the present when she is battling her cancer once again. Between Lia's sections, Greig performs interludes from the perspective of Lia's cancer, perfectly capturing the disease's wry narrative voice as it remarks on the changes in Lia's body. Wilson and Geig's two performances work in harmony, giving listeners an emotionally intimate listening experience. K.D.W. � AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
