Bodies of Light

by Jennifer Down

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76	5	354,590	(3.83)	2
A quiet, small-town existence. An unexpected Facebook message, jolting her back to the past. A history she's reluctant to revisit: dark memories and unspoken trauma, warning knocks on bedroom walls, unfathomable loss. She became a new person a long time ago. What happens when buried stories are dragged into the light?… (more)

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Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down is a highly recommended traumatic and heartbreaking story of the life of one Australian woman. Maggie's life has consisted of one appalling, traumatic experience after an other, starting with her childhood, her time in foster/group care homes and continuing with heartbreaking, dreadful events into adulthood. This is the winner of the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

This is not a pleasant novel to read. It is distressing, bleak, and harrowing throughout the entire novel. Yes, the quality of the writing is excellent, but the narrative never gives the reader a true pause from the feeling of a life of futility and hopelessness. There are brief periods where you think she is going to overcome her past experiences and live a fulfilling life, but they are brief as another horrific turn of events will quickly follow. Maggie does keep trying to cope with everything. The first half of the novel is stronger than the last half.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the Text Publishing Company via Edelweiss.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2023/07/bodies-of-light.html (

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SheTreadsSoftly | Jul 1, 2023 |

this is just trauma porn.
If you want to read about the repeated rape of a child by three different men in the first 48 pages - look no further.

reading about australia in the 80s - great.

paedophillia and the abuse of a child. - - no bro.

spiritedstardust | Mar 31, 2023 |

(8.5) (

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HelenBaker | Nov 1, 2022 |

No doubt the best book I’ve read in quite a while. Perfectly paced. Deeply touching. It’s fiction, but so real you’d swear it was a life memoir. All this from a writer still young enough to be considered precocious. Jennifer Down is genius. (

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PhilipJHunt | Apr 1, 2022 |

4.5 stars rounded down because it felt really long towards the end and the themes are pretty depressing. It does end on a good note, however. The writing is sensational. My library recommends books by Australian writers and I try to borrow one each month. This one is Melbournian and most of the book is based in Victoria. It follows the life story of a woman who lost her parents early and went through the child protection foster system and the impact of significant complex trauma in her life. It's a very compelling because of the way she writes. Really worth a read. (

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altricial | Dec 17, 2021 |

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Awards

Dublin Literary Award (Longlist – 2023)

Miles Franklin Literary Award (Winner – 2022)

Stella Prize (Shortlist – 2022)

Voss Literary Prize (Longlist – 2022)

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A quiet, small-town existence. An unexpected Facebook message, jolting her back to the past. A history she's reluctant to revisit: dark memories and unspoken trauma, warning knocks on bedroom walls, unfathomable loss. She became a new person a long time ago. What happens when buried stories are dragged into the light?

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Winner, Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2022
awardShortlisted, Fiction, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, 2022
awardShortlisted, Stella Prize, 2022
awardShortlisted, Fiction, The Age Book of the Year Award, 2022
awardShortlisted, Barbara Jefferis Award, 2022
awardShortlisted, Adult crime novels, Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards, 2022
awardLonglisted, Voss Literary Prize, 2022

So by the grace of a photograph that had inexplicably gone viral, Tony had found me. Or: he’d found Maggie.

I had no way of knowing whether he was nuts or not; whether he might go to the cops. Maybe that sounds paranoid, but I don’t think it’s so ridiculous. People have gone to prison for much lesser things than accusations of child-killing.

A quiet, small-town existence. An unexpected Facebook message, jolting her back to the past. A history she’s reluctant to revisit: dark memories and unspoken trauma, warning knocks on bedroom walls, unfathomable loss.

She became a new person a long time ago. What happens when buried stories are dragged into the light?

This epic novel from the two-time Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year is a masterwork of tragedy and heartbreak—the story of a life in full. Sublimely wrought in devastating detail, Bodies of Light confirms Jennifer Down as one of the writers defining her generation.

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