Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

Maddie Mortimer

From Shelf: 2023 Betty Trask Award Shortlist

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is about a family coming to terms with the unthinkable: the death of a mother. Playful and funny, profound and heart-breaking, this is a daring debut about motherhood, anatomy, language and the darkness within us all.

Winner of the Desmond Elliott PrizeShortlisted: Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year - Goldsmiths Prize - Betty Trask PrizeLonglisted: Booker Prize - Dylan Thomas PrizeMaps 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 WallLia 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.The Sunday Times Book of the Year'Restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive' - The Guardian'Extraordinary, kaleidoscopic' - Daisy Johnson, author of Everything, Under