Having a serious illness inevitably changes a person's relationship to their own body. This is the experience which is creatively and movingly dramatised in Maddie Mortimer's debut novel. Lia is a writer and artist who illustrates children's guides to the body as well as being a wife and mother. At the beginning of the novel she receives the news that her cancer has recurred and she will have to undergo another cycle of brutal treatment. The story follows Lia and her family's extremely challenging process of dealing with this and come to terms with her past. While they love and support Lia through this illness, her adolescent daughter Iris and her academic husband Harry struggle to deal with their own issues because ordinary life doesn't stop.
Running alongside the tale of their lives is a narrative voice which is marked in bold type. The identity of this narrator is intentionally elusive as it could be interpreted as the disease, Lia's body, a projection of her psyche (feelings of guilt, anger or restlessness) or genetics itself as it travels through generations. The voice is sporadic at first, but it comes to have a stronger and more prominent presence in the story. It's both an antagonist and a reliably familiar presence in Lia's life. It can be at turns mischievous and funny in its (high and low) cultural references as well as threatening and manipulative. Though it can feel disarming to have this odd presence amidst a more traditional narrative it comes to feel like an integral part of the story and makes sense since when our lives are disrupted by serious illness it can feel like another entity with its own agenda is constantly with us.
I was somewhat hesitant to start this book since people very close to me have struggled with cancer, but I ultimately found it extremely beneficial reading such an impressive debut novel. It helped me process my feelings surrounding this condition and the emotional and practical implications of dealing with such an illness. The story sympathetically shows how everyone has their own unique ways of coping with the life altering challenges which accompany cancer. It's also extremely artful how Mortimer describes methods of viewing the body and how we can reconsider our relationship to our physical being. There are also multiple emotionally-charged scenes which I know will stick with me such as when Iris undergoes a painful stunt to impress the school bully only for it to backfire and when Lia is groped on a train by a group of raucous lads. Scenes of strife are also mixed in with moments of tenderness such as when Harry cares for Lia or when Iris and Lia playfully come up with multiple creative answers for Lia's school test questions.
There were some moments where it feels like the author is controlling the nebulous voice to make a statement or get a point across rather than it coming organically, but for the most part it feels like an authentic presence that Lia is inextricably linked to. I was also somewhat uncertain if the scenes from Lia's early life were necessary to flash back to, but ultimately this comes together to make a poignant statement about how the past and present intersect, just as the beginning of life/potential of life circles back to our lives' inevitable end. Overall I was impressed by the scope and ingenuity of this novel to give a different perspective on the physical and mental process of illness. It's a moving and memorable experience reading it.
