Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies [B1830]

2022 french-flap PB in nice clean condition. This lyrical debut novel is at once a passionate coming-of-age story, a meditation on illness and death, and a kaleidoscopic journey through one woman's life--told in part by the malevolent voice of her disease. Named a Best Book of 2022 by Time, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal. Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize. Longlisted for the Booker Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize.

Lia, her husband Harry, and their beloved daughter, Iris, are a precisely balanced family of three. With Iris struggling to navigate the social tightrope of early adolescence, their tender home is a much-needed refuge. But when a sudden diagnosis threatens to derail each of their lives, the secrets of Lia's past come rushing into the present, and the world around them begins to transform. Deftly guided through time, we discover the people who shaped Lia's youth; from her deeply religious mother to her troubled first love. In turn, each will take their place in the shifting landscape of Lia's body; at the center of which dances a gleeful narrator, learning her life from the inside, growing more emboldened by the day. Pivoting between the domestic and the epic, the comic and the heart-breaking, this astonishing novel unearths the darkness and levity of one woman's life to symphonic effect.

From recent Mixed Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Wow. This book was heartbreaking and beautiful; the writing was unique and captivating. I'll be thinking about this one for a while."; "Terrific first read of 2026. Lyrical, electrifying, unique. Tremendous. I fell in love with the idea of disease mapping our bodies, and how in the end, it is all forgiveness and light."; "I love when poets write novels! I've never read anything like this before."; "Couldn't get past the formatting."; "It took me about 50% of the book to really get into it and many times (in the first half), I thought of giving up, I'm glad I didn't! Once I just let myself drift with it, everything got clearer and then - the last 4 hours or so - I couldn't put it down."; "A read that demands strength and resilience, compassion and patience, but rewards you with beauty, vulnerability, familiarity, and understanding."; ""