Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies: Longlisted for the Booker Prize

Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize Shortlist: Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year – Goldsmiths Prize – Betty Trask Prize Longlisted: Booker Prize – 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. The Sunday Times Book of the Year ‘Restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive’ – The Guardian ‘Extraordinary, kaleidoscopic’ – Daisy Johnson, author of Everything, Under