Author(s): Maddie Mortimer

Novel | Medicine

Named a Best Book of 2022 by Time, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal

Longlisted for the Booker Prize · Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize · Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize · Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize · Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Prize

This lyrical debut novel is at once a passionate coming-of-age story, a meditation on illness and death, and a kaleidoscopic journey through one woman's life--told in part by the malevolent voice of her disease.

Lia, her husband Harry, and their beloved daughter, Iris, are a precisely balanced family of three. With Iris struggling to navigate the social tightrope of early adolescence, their tender home is a much-needed refuge. But when a sudden diagnosis threatens to derail each of their lives, the secrets of Lia's past come rushing into the present, and the world around them begins to transform.

Deftly guided through time, we discover the people who shaped Lia's youth; from her deeply religious mother to her troubled first love. In turn, each will take their place in the shifting landscape of Lia's body; at the center of which dances a gleeful narrator, learning her life from the inside, growing more emboldened by the day.

Pivoting between the domestic and the epic, the comic and the heart-breaking, this astonishing novel unearths the darkness and levity of one woman's life to symphonic effect.

Today I might trace the rungs of her larynx or tap at her trachea like the bones of a xylophone or cook up or undo some great horrors of my own because here is the thing about bodies: they are impossibly easy to prowl, without anyone suspecting a thing. Until, of course, they do. And then, of course, they aren't. When Lia finds out that her cancer is back, she tries to keep the landscapes of her past, her present and her body separate. But bodies are porous, unpredictable places. Lia's story is told, in part, by the very thing that is killing her; a gleeful and malevolent voice that shape-shifts through her systems, learning her life from the inside-out. We come to understand the people that have shaped her: a daughter, navigating the horrors of the playground; a husband, struggling to maintain a sense of self as everything falls apart; a regretful mother making up for lost time; and a troubled former lover who belongs to Lia's past, but won't stay there. In turn they each take up their place in the changing landscape of Lia's body, at the centre of which dances our restless narrator and a boy nicknamed 'Red'; the chemotherapy that is Lia's last hope. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a story of coming-of-age at the end of a life - a heartbreaking tale of desire, love and forgiveness, a wild and fierce journey through one woman's body.

Review: Remarkable . . . A tearjerker, but it's hopeful too . . . Brave, inventive and mature * 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
Compelling and uplifting . . . undeniably impressive: Mortimer is clearly a talent to watch * Telegraph *
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
Lyrical and beautiful, this is a novel unlike anything else * Stylist *
Both expansive and intimate, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is an intricate portrait of a life hurtling towards the inevitable. An extraordinary debut. -- Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mercies
Striking . . . formally inventive . . . Sadness is not allowed to crowd out wit and joy * New Yorker *
A beautiful novel about death that feels completely alive, pulsing with tenderness and wit -- Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From and The Harpy
An extraordinary debut, unlike anything I've read. Wildly inventive, poetic and poignant, this is a rare gem of a novel that took my imagination to new places and touched my heart. -- Emma Stonex, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Lamplighters

Technically dazzling . . . Mortimer has the same felicity with language as Jon McGregor, combining an incantatory prose style with imagery so acute it almost burns

* Daily Mail *
Ambitious, sprawling . . . brings to mind Eimear McBride's A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing . . . restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive . . . sharply funny * Guardian *
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 * i newspaper *
This is a touching, eye-opening perspective on life and illness like you've never read before * Good Housekeeping *
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 * Booklist (starred) *
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 * Straits Times *

Prizes: Short-listed for Desmond Elliott Prize 2022 (UK) and The Goldsmiths Prize 2022 (UK). Long-listed for The Booker Prize 2022 (UK).

Author Biography: 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. She is co-writing a TV series currently in development with Various Artists Ltd. In 2019 she completed the Faber Academy Writing a Novel course. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is her first novel.