Description
Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize
Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year and the Goldsmiths Prize
Longlisted for the Booker Prize and the 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 symphonic 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 still has hope . . . for more time, for more love, for more Iris.
‘Restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive’ – The Guardian
‘Extraordinary, kaleidoscopic’ – Daisy Johnson, author of Everything, Under
