Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies (Hardback)
  • Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies (Hardback)
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Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies (Hardback)

(author)
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£14.99
Hardback 448 Pages
Published: 31/03/2022
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Waterstones Says

An audacious tour de force that is both heartwrenchingly moving and darkly funny, Mortimer's accomplished debut centres on Lia and the shapeshifting malady that enters her body at the close of her life.

Shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2022

Shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2022

Longlisted for The Booker Prize 2022

Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2023

Today I might trace the rungs of her larynx or tap at her trachea like the bones of a xylophone...

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.

Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9781529069365
Number of pages: 448
Weight: 554 g
Dimensions: 216 x 135 x 36 mm


MEDIA REVIEWS

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

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“Rhapsody in human body ….”

Mortimer’s wonderful debut centres on Lia who finds out that the cancer she thought she had beat has now returned.
The illness is portrayed as a shape-shifter, a disaster tourist, a malevolent being slowly moving in... More

Hardback edition
Helpful? Upvote 36

“A unique novel”

I have just finished reading “Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies” and it has to rate as one of the most unique novels I have ever read. It tells the story of Lia who has been diagnosed with cancer and switches between... More

Hardback edition
Helpful? Upvote 17

“Human and profound; a brilliant debut”

I was not sure I was going to be able to get through this heart-breaking book. There can be few of us who have not been touched by the death or illness of a loved one from cancer. But Maddie Mortimer’s debut novel is... More

Hardback edition
Helpful? Upvote 14

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