Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies: Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer is a debut novel centred on Lia, as an unsettling presence begins to move within her body and learn her life from the inside. Described as both a shape-shifter and a disaster tourist, it travels through her and spreads as her world starts to shift.

Following a sudden diagnosis, the boundaries between Lia’s past and present begin to collapse and long-buried secrets surface. As the voice inside her takes hold of her story, the landscape around her becomes increasingly difficult to separate from the one within. Lia and her family are left to face questions about what shapes us, what our bodies retain, and what it means to die with grace when you are not ready to let go.

Key details

• Debut novel by Maddie Mortimer
• Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022
• Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize 2022
• Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2022

Synopsis

Something gleeful and malevolent moves through Lia’s body, observing and inhabiting her life from the inside out. After a sudden diagnosis, time begins to fold in on itself as the lines between past and present blur.

As secrets rise to the surface, the voice within Lia claims her story and the outer world starts to mirror the inner landscape. Framed as a coming-of-age at the end of a life, the novel moves through desire, forgiveness and the darkness within us all, balancing heartbreak with dark humour.