Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

by Maddie Mortimer · 2022

Maddie Mortimer’s debut, *Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies*, follows Lia, her husband Harry, and their teenage daughter Iris as a sudden cancer diagnosis shatters the fragile equilibrium of their home. As Lia’s illness asserts a mischievous, almost sentient voice inside her body, memories surge forward—her devout mother, a reckless first love, and the moments that shaped her youth. The novel weaves these past fragments into the present, turning Lia’s body into a shifting landscape where desire, forgiveness, and mortality collide. Darkly funny and deeply moving, the story is a lyrical, kale‑copic meditation on how we carry our histories within us and what it means to face the end with both grace and stubborn hope.