Genre Fiction
![Maddie Mortimer - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_maddie_mortimer.jpg)
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies
Longlisted for the International Booker 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.
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.
Editorial Reviews
"This is a touching, eye-opening perspective on life and illness like you've never read before."-Good Housekeeping
"Ambitious... Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies sets its own terms."-The Guardian
"English novelist Mortimer's debut novel is a poetic story of a woman and the cancer that consumes her body... 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."-The Straits Times
"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, author of The Mercies
"Here is a book to dance and sing about. An extraordinary, kaleidoscopic dive into language."-Daisy Johnson, author of Sisters
"An original and memorable novel written in shimmering prose. The characters stayed with me long after I'd finished reading."-Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater
"Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a beautiful novel about death that feels completely alive, pulsing with tenderness and wit." -Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From
"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, S...
"Ambitious... Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies sets its own terms."-The Guardian
"English novelist Mortimer's debut novel is a poetic story of a woman and the cancer that consumes her body... 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."-The Straits Times
"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, author of The Mercies
"Here is a book to dance and sing about. An extraordinary, kaleidoscopic dive into language."-Daisy Johnson, author of Sisters
"An original and memorable novel written in shimmering prose. The characters stayed with me long after I'd finished reading."-Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater
"Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a beautiful novel about death that feels completely alive, pulsing with tenderness and wit." -Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From
"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, S...
Readers Top Reviews
Miss T.JCTBigDog
I am struggling to read this book because a) it's not formatted for my original Kindle, so I had to buy a new one; and b) it's not formatted to enable a change in font size on the new Kindle. Both of these issues are beyond irritating but sadly no fault of the author and I feel it's extremely unfair on her that I have an unfavourable impression of the book because it's caused so many issues. Amazon I think this is on you.
Isobel AyresJon Mitr
This is a review of the kindle Edition, not the book. It’s unreadable. The font size is minute (6pt) and you cannot change it due to the format of the book (no option to increase text size exists in the page format menu). It was expensive for a Kindle book, too, at more than £8. Buy the paper book or audiobook if you want to read.
kathleen g
Know that this is a challenging read that moves back and forth in time and between reality and the voice of the cancer which is slowly killing Lia. Lia, child of Peter, a vicar, and Anne, has built a life with Harry, a university lecturer and their daughter Iris. She writes and illustrates children's books but that's not as important as her relationship with Iris, who is struggling to make sense of what's happening to their family. And in the past there's Matthew, who her parents took in when he was a homeless teen and who became her lover. I struggled with the voice of the illness, which at times felt too much and not connected but I understand that it will speak to others. There are some gorgeous sections here and some that cut (the scene on the train has for some reason stuck in my head) hard. Lia's got a secret that's not revealed until very late in the novel- no spoilers from me. This is heartbreaking in so many ways and so obviously informed by Mortimer's life. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. A wonderful if difficult debut for fans of literary fiction.
WeaslgrlK. WilliamsL
The narrative conceit is interesting: as a dying woman reviews her life, her cancer is one of the narrators. But for me, the “experimental prose” of the disease’s voice was a miss. A lot of it was nonsensical, and (by design) it eventually overwhelms the novel as it does the protagonist.
JoettaConstantine
Author tried to over simplify cancer but did not achieve it. Quit after reading 1/2 of book
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter One one I
I, itch of ink, think of thing, plucked open at her start; no bigger than a capillary, no wiser than a cantaloupe, and quite optimistic about what my life would come to look like. I have since ached along her edges. Delighting in my bare-feet-floorboard-creeps across from where she once would feed, down to where her body brews, I have sampled, splintered, leaked and chewed through tissue, nook, bone, crease and node so much, so well, so tough, now, that the place feels like my own.
It is, perhaps, inevitable that after all this time, I have come to feel a little dissatisfied with the fact of my existence. This is not easy to admit. I suppose one can only be a disaster tourist for so long before the cruel old ennui starts to set in. But the Greeks said that in the beginning, there was boredom. The gods moulded mankind from its black, lifeless crust and this is, of course, encouraging.
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.
The Beginning of the End
Lia remembered two things about the beginning of the end.
The first: the time it took the traffic lights to change.
The second: the fact that nobody died.
She was one crossing away from the place she needed to be, the surging rhythm of the city in her pulse, the day tripping quick towards rush hour. Her senses felt unusually alert. Nicked wide open by nerves, perhaps. It was nice. A nice change. To feel this exposed, this alive, whilst standing at a red light waiting for the world to resume itself.
A man in a suit that was too small for him sighed heavily and hailed a taxi.
Two women spoke loudly on their phones, slices of their conversation burying themselves into the back of her neck; I told him I said you can't help how you feel. Booked the two thirty slot tomorrow, there's some leftover casserole in the fridge you can microwave. No cash, I'm afraid. Won't be late. God, I always feel so bad. Remember to feed the cat.
Lia pinched the velvet of her earlobe and thought about tragedy.
Which poet was it that said an abiding sense of tragedy
can sustain a man through temporary periods of joy?
Which philosopher was it that said
all tragedies begin with
an admirable quiet?
Today had been full of clamour.
Everyone seemed seconds away from catastrophe.
The belt of a woman's coat bounced against her bicycle spokes. Cycling accidents were rising at a steady rate of 15 per cent each year. More than 4,500 resulting in death or serious injury, yesterday's newspaper had read. The city just keeps culling, there is grief on every street, Lia thought, as the plump belly of a toddler emerged at an open window and her eyes flicked down the floors below, counting, jaw tight, as the toddler leant its milk-white head out in delight, resting its tiny fingers on the ledge.
Four floors. The fall was four floors down.
Fluorine is pale yellow, chlorine is yellow-green, and bromine is red-brown.
A girl in a blue school uniform began lecturing her friend loudly on the subject of elements.
The halogens get darker as you go down, see.
Lia noticed the girl had thick straight lashes that interlaced as she blinked and a profile of rare, youthful prettiness, the kind that stood out amongst the mass of waiting faces, growing impatient at the crossing, and it was always so hard, she thought – so hard not to get distracted by beautiful things.
Back at the window, the toddler had disappeared. The window had been shut. This was, of course, a relief.
She took a deep, heavy breath in through her nose, concentrating on the stretch of her ribs, the widening of her chest, and held it. Trapped it there. The crackling warmth of petrol air. It had been two years since she'd walked these streets. Crossed this crossing. Two years since she'd sat staring at the scan of her body and brain pinned up against the light, pointing to the dark patch swimming about the centre. That's the corpus callosum, the doctor had said. Nothing to worry about (she let the long, lovely breath rush through her lips) just the thick nerve tract conne...
I, itch of ink, think of thing, plucked open at her start; no bigger than a capillary, no wiser than a cantaloupe, and quite optimistic about what my life would come to look like. I have since ached along her edges. Delighting in my bare-feet-floorboard-creeps across from where she once would feed, down to where her body brews, I have sampled, splintered, leaked and chewed through tissue, nook, bone, crease and node so much, so well, so tough, now, that the place feels like my own.
It is, perhaps, inevitable that after all this time, I have come to feel a little dissatisfied with the fact of my existence. This is not easy to admit. I suppose one can only be a disaster tourist for so long before the cruel old ennui starts to set in. But the Greeks said that in the beginning, there was boredom. The gods moulded mankind from its black, lifeless crust and this is, of course, encouraging.
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.
The Beginning of the End
Lia remembered two things about the beginning of the end.
The first: the time it took the traffic lights to change.
The second: the fact that nobody died.
She was one crossing away from the place she needed to be, the surging rhythm of the city in her pulse, the day tripping quick towards rush hour. Her senses felt unusually alert. Nicked wide open by nerves, perhaps. It was nice. A nice change. To feel this exposed, this alive, whilst standing at a red light waiting for the world to resume itself.
A man in a suit that was too small for him sighed heavily and hailed a taxi.
Two women spoke loudly on their phones, slices of their conversation burying themselves into the back of her neck; I told him I said you can't help how you feel. Booked the two thirty slot tomorrow, there's some leftover casserole in the fridge you can microwave. No cash, I'm afraid. Won't be late. God, I always feel so bad. Remember to feed the cat.
Lia pinched the velvet of her earlobe and thought about tragedy.
Which poet was it that said an abiding sense of tragedy
can sustain a man through temporary periods of joy?
Which philosopher was it that said
all tragedies begin with
an admirable quiet?
Today had been full of clamour.
Everyone seemed seconds away from catastrophe.
The belt of a woman's coat bounced against her bicycle spokes. Cycling accidents were rising at a steady rate of 15 per cent each year. More than 4,500 resulting in death or serious injury, yesterday's newspaper had read. The city just keeps culling, there is grief on every street, Lia thought, as the plump belly of a toddler emerged at an open window and her eyes flicked down the floors below, counting, jaw tight, as the toddler leant its milk-white head out in delight, resting its tiny fingers on the ledge.
Four floors. The fall was four floors down.
Fluorine is pale yellow, chlorine is yellow-green, and bromine is red-brown.
A girl in a blue school uniform began lecturing her friend loudly on the subject of elements.
The halogens get darker as you go down, see.
Lia noticed the girl had thick straight lashes that interlaced as she blinked and a profile of rare, youthful prettiness, the kind that stood out amongst the mass of waiting faces, growing impatient at the crossing, and it was always so hard, she thought – so hard not to get distracted by beautiful things.
Back at the window, the toddler had disappeared. The window had been shut. This was, of course, a relief.
She took a deep, heavy breath in through her nose, concentrating on the stretch of her ribs, the widening of her chest, and held it. Trapped it there. The crackling warmth of petrol air. It had been two years since she'd walked these streets. Crossed this crossing. Two years since she'd sat staring at the scan of her body and brain pinned up against the light, pointing to the dark patch swimming about the centre. That's the corpus callosum, the doctor had said. Nothing to worry about (she let the long, lovely breath rush through her lips) just the thick nerve tract conne...
