Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies: Longlisted for the Booker Prize

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Calling the novel “sprawling and ambitious”, the Guardian review explains that Lia “shares the spotlight with ‘I, itch of ink, think of thing’, an impish, verbose and mysterious narrator that appears to be neither human nor nonhuman. Confined to its own short chapters early on, its signature bold type begins to infiltrate the standard third-person narration.” This was one of the few good things about having a vicar for a father – one could not easily turn away homeless strangers. It would not reflect well on the Church. The Early Career Awards portfolio also includes the University of East Anglia (UEA) New Forms Award for an innovative and daring new voice in fiction, and the Laura Kinsella Fellowship, which recognises an exceptional writer who has experienced limiting circumstances or is currently underrepresented in literary fiction. She inhales around thirteen pints of air a day and exhales billions and billions of molecules of oxygen in a moment. There is a theory that every person will have a sliver of Not quite a noble steed, but a great mustard beast of a bike, which blazes its own spun hymn of chain against metal, and will no doubt serve devilish Red as well as Gringolet served Gawain, or Arion served Adrastus, or Marengo served Napoleon.

Lia’s condition worsens, while Iris is still determined to live her pre-teenage years fully. In turn, Lia’s mother, Anne, comes to terms not only with her daughter’s illness but her own shortcomings, finding that hospitals are “ideal environments for Mothers Making Amends”. 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 Her mother was waiting next to the chair where it all happened, where they’d put her in the cap, rewire her, fix her fuses then plug her in like a Christmas tree, caged inMaps of Our Spectacular Bodies is the lyrical tale of a woman, her body and the illness that coinhabits it. Told from the perspectives of Lia herself, her daughter Iris and the (callous? Cynical? Caring…?) voice of the disease itself, we follow her life after a diagnosis of terminal cancer. A coming of age story, at the end of a life. Despite the fact that my head is still too full with it to write a proper-form review, here are three things you need to know: What are you doing waiting there for? she said, leaping into Lia’s arms, and Lia felt the street hold its breath, the swelling of its surfaces, the gradual muffle of its parking cars and sycamores. Here is a book to dance and sing about. An extraordinary, kaleidoscopic dive into language."— Daisy Johnson, author of Sisters How is it possible that this is a debut novel from an author who's not even thirty? When, where and how does one so young master the English language and the art of writing to such a high level? From an early age, Lia is made to feel suspicious of her body. She grows up in a vicarage, where the flesh that matters belongs to Christ. When she is 12, her parents, Anne and Peter, take in an adolescent boy, Matthew. Anne and Peter grow to love Matthew. So does Lia – but in a different way. The young man is heading for ordination, Anne and Peter believe, unaware of what goes on in Lia’s bedroom.

It was no surprise, then, that when the doctor announced the cancer had spread, Lia felt a stirring in her stomach. This deep-vowelled how? like a wolf’s cry. The doctor searched her eyes sadly and nodded, ever so slightly, as if he were agreeing with the churning stomach sound, how how howing away at the body’s betrayal.So Poseidon had a son. He is known, as many gods are, by different names. You may have heard of the Old Man of the Sea, yes, well he was also called Proteus and he could change shape at will; a great deal of philosophers, psychologists, writers and scientists (some of which we will be looking at today) have taken inspiration from his slippery form, his unknowability; he did not have a container as such; instead he could take the shape of a lion or a snake or even water itself depending on his particular playful temperament that day – Lia had grown very fond of her doctor. He had been looking after her and her insides for eight long years on and off and was the perfect cancer doctor in every way, except for the fact that he had just gone and died. I wrote it as a way of spending time with her, working through grief and the intense period of experiencing someone die,” she added. “So having the book out in the world as a piece of us and our relationship is one thing. Having it win the Desmond Elliott prize is extraordinary and deeply moving. I wish she was here to see it.”

There are two main strands of the story - a fairly straight omniscient third person narration of the family story, and more poetic and mysterious bold text in which a voice is given to the cancer cells as they explore Lia's body and her thoughts. Feeling brews itself in different locations, depending on the body. A man’s most honest impulses may begin in his hands or his heart, his toes, throat, fingers or thighs. Lia felt most things first in her stomach. Did you guys know, Iris said suddenly, very seriously, that one and a half acres of forest are cut down every single second? She examined the top row of her teeth in the mirror and shot Harry a sideways glance, as if to ask – and what are you going to do about it? But the most distinctive character is a first-person voice, which (at least at first) I interpreted as Lia’s long-dormant, now reappearing cancer and one which sets out to explore the interior contours, pathways, vessels and organs of her body. There the voice encounters the aggressive Red chemotherapy treatment sent to destroy the cancer and the group of those who are part of Lia’s past and present (who he sees as Yellow, The Gardener, The Dove, The Fossil and so on) which in turn leads to his exploration bringing long dormant memories to life. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a coming-of-age story at the end of a life. It’s the story of Lia, her husband and daughter as they deal with a terminal illness diagnosis that rewrites the family’s history from the inside out. Moving between Lia’s past and her present, the inside and outside of her body, Mortimer stretches the limit of the novel’s form, weaving poetry into her prose throughout. The novel was inspired by Mortimer’s mother, who died of cancer in 2010.Longlisted for the Booker Prize · Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize · Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize · Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize · Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Prize We’ll fight this, Harry said suddenly, sounding quite unlike himself, we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again. Anne spoke quietly, respectfully, of new curtains and a holiday planned for March. Lia nodded along. Their eyes fell for a moment on the liquid red drip, the silence like a burning prayer.

Both doctor and Wikipedia said: when breast cancer spread to the lungs or liver it could be treated but could not be cured. But pink was just a phase. Just a gesture of something or somewhere Iris wanted to get to. She moved through and out of it a little wiser, a little more sensitive to the causality of colour and consumption.

Maddie Mortimer was born in London in 1996. She received her BA in English Literature from the University of Bristol. This is the best book about cancer I’ve read in a long time. That’s mainly because it’s not just a book about cancer. Unlike many others within the genre, Mortimer doesn’t portray a battle-narrative. There is no hero’s journey of a strong-willed protagonist against a body in revolt, or a personified evil to be vanquished. Instead it’s the story of Lia as a whole, and everything her body holds: memories, heartbreak, love, regrets, experiences; cancer being but one of them. Yes, it’s the story of a body’s annihilation, but only secondary to being about the life it has lived.