Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

Remarkable . . . A tearjerker, but it's hopeful too . . . Brave, inventive and matureHere is a book to dance and sing about. An extraordinary, kaleidoscopic dive into languageCompelling and uplifting . . . undeniably impressive: Mortimer is clearly a talent to watchAn original and memorable novel written in shimmering prose. The characters stayed with me long after I’d finished readingLyrical and beautiful, this is a novel unlike anything elseBoth expansive and intimate, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is an intricate portrait of a life hurtling towards the inevitable. An extraordinary debut.Striking . . . formally inventive . . . Sadness is not allowed to crowd out wit and joyA beautiful novel about death that feels completely alive, pulsing with tenderness and witAn 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.

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

Ambitious, sprawling . . . brings to mind Eimear McBride's A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing . . . restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive . . . sharply funnyIt 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 lifeThis is a touching, eye-opening perspective on life and illness like you've never read beforeUsing 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 containMaddie 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 wayMaps 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.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize
Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize
Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year
Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize
Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize

‘Original, memorable, shimmering’ - Sarah Moss

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 hopes: for more time, for more love, for more Iris.

Dancing between voices within Lia’s body and without, flitting back and forth in time, this sweeping, dazzling story of a life and what it is to let go marks the arrival of an extraordinary novelist.

'Restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive' - The Guardian
‘Extraordinary, kaleidoscopic’ - Daisy Johnson

Maddie Mortimer was born in 1996. She lives in London, where she works as a screenwriter and an author. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, her first novel, has been longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize, shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Trust Young Writer of the Year Award, and was the winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize.